r 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


FROM  THE  LIBRARY  OF 

JIM  TULLY 

GIFT  OF 
MRS.  JIM  TULLY 


THE   STONES    OF    PARIS 

IN    HISTORY   AND   LETTERS 


^1 


Moliere 
,    port* ■M.gnard,  »  Mu*  C M.  at  Chanflly.) 


THE  STONES  OF  PARIS 

IN   HISTORY  AND   LETTERS 


BY 

BENJAMIN    ELLIS    MARTIN 

AND 

CHARLOTTE   M.   MARTIN 


IN    TWO    VOLUMES 
Vol.  I 


ILLUSTRATED 


NEW    YORK 
CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 

MDCCCXCIX 


Copyright,  1899,  by 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


TROW  DIRECTORY 

PRINTING  AND  BOOKBINDING  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK 


707 


TO 

W.  C.   BROWNELL 

IN   CORDIAL   TRIBUTE   TO   HIS 

"FRENCH   TRAITS" 


809919 


CONTENTS 

Page 

Three  Time-worn  Staircases 11 

The  Scholars'  Quarter  of  the  Middle  Ages    ...  73 

Moliere  and  his  Friends 103 

From  Voltaire  to  Beaumarchais 191 

The  Paris  of  the  Revolution 221 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 

From  drawings  by  John  Fulleylove,  Esq.      The  portraits  from 
photographs  by  Messrs.  Braun,   Clement  et  Cie. 

Moliere  (from  the  portrait  by  Mignard  in  the  Musee  Conde,  at 

Chantilly) Frontispiece 

PAGE 

The  so-called  Hotel  de  la  Reine  Blanche  (from  a  photograph  of 

the  Commission  du  Vieux  Paris)        .          .          .        facing  28 

Balcony  of  the  Hotel  de  Lauzun-Pimodan,  on  lie  Saint-Louis  .  47 
"  Jean-sans-Peur,"  Due  de  Bourgogne  (from  a  painting  by  an 

unknown  artist,  at  Chantilly)    ....        facing  56 

The  Tower  of  "Jean-sans-Peur"     ......  70 

The  Church  of  Saint-Severin    .....        facing  74 

Rue  Hautefeuille,  a  Survivor  of  the  Scholars'  Quarter       .         .  81 

The  Interior  of  Saint- Julien-le-Pauvre  .  .  .  facing  82 
Pierre  de  Ronsard  (from  a  drawing  by  an  unknown  artist,  in  a 

private  collection)     ......        facing  88 

Balcony  over  the  Entrance  of  the  Cour  du  Dragon  ...  92 
Clement   Marot  (from  the  portrait  by  Porbus  le  Jeune,  in  a 

private  collection)      ......         facing  94 

Rene    Descartes    (from    the    portrait   by    Franz    Hals,    in    the 

Musee  du  Louvre)    ......        facing  100 

The  Stage  Door  of  Moliere's  Second  Theatre  in  Paris         .         .114 
The  Stamp  of  the  Comedie  Francaise        .         .  .         .         .121 

The  Moliere  Fountain      ......         facing  128 

The   Door    of  Corneille's  Last   Dwelling  (from  a  drawing  by 

Robert    Delafontaine,     by    permission    of    M.     Victorien 

Sardou)    .......          .         facing  142 

Pierre  Corneille  (from  the  portrait  by  Charles  Lebrun)     facing  148 


LIST   OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


Rue  Visconti.    On  the  right  is  the  Hotel  de  Ranes,  and  in  the 

distance  is  No.  13     .....  .        facing     160 

La  Fontaine  (from  the  portrait  by  Rigaud-y-Ros)      .         facing     176 
Boileau-Despreaux  (from  the  portrait  by  Largilliere)        facing     184 
Voltaire    (from    the    statue    by    Houdon    in    the    foyer   of   the 

Comedie  Francaise)  ......        facing     192 

The  Hotel- Lambert  ........      198 

The  Seventeenth-century   Buildings  on  Quai   Malaquais,  with 

the  Institute  and  the  Statue  of  Voltaire      .         .        facing    212 
Charlotte  Corday  (from  the  copy  by  Baudry  of  the  only  authen- 
tic portrait,  painted  in  her  prison)     .         .  .        facing    222 
The  Refectory  of  the  Cordeliers        ....        facing    230 

The  Carre  d'Atalante  in  the  Tuileries  Gardens  .         .  .     236 

The  Girlhood  Home  of  Madame  Roland  .  .         .         facing    244 

No.  13  Quai  Conti 258 

Monogram  from  the  former  entrance  of  the  Cour  du  Com- 
merce, believed  to  be  the  initials  of  the  owner,  one  Girar- 
dot  (from  a  drawing  by  Robert  Delafontaine,  by  permis- 
sion of  M.  Victorien  Sardou)     ......     269 


INTRODUCTORY 

This  book  has  been  written  for  those  who  seek  in 
Paris  something  more  than  a  city  of  shows  or  a  huge  ba- 
zaar, something  better  than  the  cabaret  wherein  Fran- 
cois I.  found  entertainment,  and  yet  not  quite — still  in 
Hugo's  phrase— the  library  that  Charles  V.  esteemed  it. 
There  are  many  lovers  of  this  beautiful  capital  of  a  great 
people,  who,  knowing  well  her  unconcealed  attractions, 
would  search  out  her  records  and  traditions  in  stone, 
hidden  and  hard  to  find.  This  legitimate  curiosity 
grows  more  eager  with  the  increasing  difficulties  of 
gratifying  it  in  that  ancient  Paris  that  is  vanishing  day 
by  day ;  and,  in  its  bewilderment,  it  may  be  glad  to  find 
congenial  guidance  in  these  pages.  In  them,  no  attempt 
is  made  to  destroy  that  which  is  new  in  order  to  recon- 
struct what  was  old.  In  telling  the  stories  of  those 
monuments  of  past  ages  that  are  visible  and  tangible, 
reference  is  made  only  to  so  much  of  their  perished  ap- 
proaches and  neighbors  as  shall  suffice  for  full  realiza- 
tion of  the  significance  of  all  that  we  are  to  see.  This 
significance  is  given  mainly  by  the  former  dwellers 
within  these  walls.  We  shall  concern  ourselves  with 
the  human  document,  illustrated  by  its  surroundings. 
The  student  of  history  can  find  no  more  suggestive 
relics  of  mediaeval  Paris  than  the  still  existing  towers 
Vol.  I.— i.  i 


THE   STONES  OF  PARIS 


and  fragments  of  the  wall  of  Philippe-Auguste,  which 
shall  be  shown  to  him ;  for  us,  these  stones  must  be 
made  to  speak,  not  so  essentially  of  their  mighty 
builder  as  of  the  common  people,  who  moved  about 
within  that  enclosure  and  gave  it  character.  In  like 
manner,  the  walls,  which  have  sheltered  soldiers,  states- 
men, preachers,  teachers,  workers  in  art  and  letters, 
illustrious  men  and  women  of  all  sorts  and  conditions, 
will  take  on  the  personality  of  these  impressive  pres- 
ences. When  we  stand  beneath  the  roof  of  that  favorite 
personage  in  history,  that  spoiled  child  of  romance,  who 
happens  to  be  dear  to  each  one  of  us,  we  are  brought 
into  touch  with  him  as  with  a  living  fellow-creature. 
The  streets  of  Paris  are  alive  with  these  sympathetic 
companions,  who  become  abiding  friends,  as  we  stroll 
with  them ;  and  allow  none  of  the  ache,  confessed  to  be 
felt  in  such  scenes,  despite  her  reasoning,  by  Madame 
de  Sevigne.  Nor  do  they  invite,  here,  any  critical  re- 
view of  their  work  in  life,  but  consent  to  scrutiny  of 
their  lineaments  alone,  and  to  an  appreciation  of  their 
personal  impress  on  their  contemporaries  and  on  us. 
So  that  essays  on  themes,  historic,  literary,  artistic,  can 
find  no  place  in  this  record.  Indeed,  labor  and  time 
have  been  expended  "  in  hindering  it  from  being  .  .  . 
swollen  out  of  shape  by  superfluous  details,  defaced 
with  dilettanti  antiquarianisms,  nugatory  tag-rags,  and, 
in  short,  turned  away  from  its  real  uses,  instead  of  fur- 
thered toward  them."  In  this  sense,  at  least,  the  au- 
thors can  say  in  Montaigne's  words,  "  eeei  est  tin  livre 
de  bonne  foy." 


INTRODUCTORY 


In  this  presentation  of  people  and  places  it  has  been 
difficult,  sometimes  impossible,  to  keep  due  sequence 
both  of  chronology  and  topography.  Just  as  Mr.  Theo- 
dore Andrea  Cook  found  in  the  various  chateaux  of  his 
admirable  "  Old  Touraine,"  so  each  spot  we  shall  visit 
in  Paris  "  has  some  particular  event,  some  especial 
visitor,  whose  importance  overshadows  every  other 
memory  connected  with  the  place."  With  that  event  or 
that  visitor  we  must  needs  busy  ourselves,  without  im- 
mediate regard  to  other  dates  or  other  personages. 
Again,  to  keep  in  sight  some  conspicuous  figure,  as  he 
goes,  we  must  leave  on  one  side  certain  memorable 
scenes,  to  which  we  shall  come  back.  Each  plan  has 
been  pursued  in  turn,  as  has  seemed  desirable,  for  the 
sake  of  the  clearness  and  accuracy,  which  have  been 
considered  above  all  else.  The  whole  value  of  such 
records  as  are  here  presented  depends  on  the  pre- 
liminary researches.  In  the  doing  of  this,  thousands  of 
books  and  pamphlets  and  articles  have  been  read,  hun- 
dreds of  people  have  been  questioned,  scores  of  miles 
have  been  tramped.  Oldest  archives  and  maps  have 
been  consulted,  newest  newspaper  clippings  have  not 
been  disregarded.  Nothing  has  been  thought  too 
heavy  or  too  light  that  would  help  to  give  a  charac- 
teristic line  or  a  touch  of  native  color.  A  third  volume 
would  be  needed  to  enumerate  the  authorities  called  on 
and  compared.  Nor  has  any  statement  of  any  one  of 
these  authorities  been  accepted  without  ample  investi- 
gation ;  and  every  assertion  has  been  subjected  to  all 
the-proof  that  it  was  possible  to  procure.    Those  count- 


THE   STONES   01-    PARIS 


less  errors  have  been  run  to  earth  which  have  been 
started  so  often  by  the  carelessness  of  an  early  writer, 
and  ever  since  kept  alive  by  lazy  copiers  and  random 
compilers.  These  processes  of  sifting  are  necessarily 
omitted  for  lack  of  space,  and  the  wrought-out  results 
alone  are  shown.  If  the  authors  dare  not  hope  that  they 
have  avoided  errors  on  their  own  part,  they  may  hope 
for  indulgent  correction  of  such  as  may  have  crept  in, 
for  all  their  vigilance. 

It  is  easier,  to-day,  to  put  one's  hand  on  the  Paris  of 
the  sixteenth  century  than  on  that  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  In  those  remoter  days  changes  were  slow  to 
come,  and  those  older  stones  have  been  left  often  un- 
touched. A  curious  instance  of  that  aforetime  leisureli- 
ness  is  seen  in  the  working  of  the  ordonnancc  issued 
on  May  14,  1554,  by  Henri  II.  for  the  clearing  away  of 
certain  encroachments  made  on  the  streets  by  buildings 
and  by  business,  notably  on  Rue  de  la  Ferronerie ;  that 
street  being  one  of  those  used  "  for  our  way  from  our 
royal  chateau  of  the  Louvre  to  our  chateau  of  the  Tour- 
nelles."  It  was  fifty-six  years  later,  to  the  very  day,  that 
the  stabbing  of  Henri  IV.  was  made  easy  to  Ravaillac, 
by  the  stoppage  of  the  king's  carriage  in  the  blockade 
of  that  narrow  street,  its  obstructions  not  yet  swept  out, 
in  absolute  disregard  of  the  edict.  From  the  death  of 
the  royal  mason,  Charles  V.,  who  gave  a  new  face  and 
a  new  figure  to  his  Paris,  to  the  coming  of  Henri  IV., 
who  had  in  him  the  makings  of  a  kingly  constructor,  but 
who  was  hindered  by  the  necessary  destruction  of  his 
wars,  there  were  two  centuries  of  steady  growth  of  the 


INTRODUCTORY 


town  outward,  on  all  sides,  with  only  slight  alterations 
of  its  interior  quarters.  Many  of  these  were  trans- 
formed, many  new  quarters  were  created,  by  Louis 
XIII.,  thus  realizing  his  father's  frustrated  plans. 
Richelieu  was  able  to  widen  some  streets,  and  Colbert 
tried  to  carry  on  the  work,  but  Louis  XIV.  had  no 
liking  for  his  capital,  and  no  money  to  waste  for  its 
bettering.  His  stage-subject's  civic  pride  was  unduly 
swollen,  when  he  said :  "  A  ccttc  cpoque,  la  grande 
ville  du  roi  Henri  n'ctait  pas  ce  qu'cllc  est  aujourd'hui." 
At  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century  we  find 
Paris  divided  into  twenty  quarters,  in  none  of  which 
was  there  any  numbering  of  the  houses.  The  streets 
then  got  their  names  from  their  mansions  of  the  nobil- 
ity, from  their  vast  monasteries  and  convents,  from 
their  special  industries  and  shops.  These  latter  names 
survive  in  our  Paris  as  they  survive  in  modern  London. 
The  high-swinging  street  lanterns,  that  came  into  use  in 
1745,  served  for  directions  to  the  neighboring  houses,  as 
did  the  private  lanterns  hung  outside  the  better  dwell- 
ings. Toward  the  middle  of  that  century  the  city  alma- 
nacs began  a  casual  numbering  of  the  houses  in  their 
lists,  and  soon  this  was  found  to  be  such  a  convenience 
that  the  householders  painted  numbers  on  or  beside  their 
doors.  Not  before  1789  -was  there  any  organized  or 
official  numbering,  and  this  was  speedily  brought  to 
naught  during  the  Revolution,  either  because  it  was  too 
simple  or  because  it  was  already  established.  To  this 
day,  the  first  symptom  of  a  local  or  national  upheaval, 
and  the  latest  sigri  of  its  ending,  are  the  ladder  and 


THE   STONES   OF  PARIS 


paint-pot  in  the  streets  of  Paris.  Names  that  recall  to 
the  popular  eye  recently  discredited  celebrities  or  hu- 
miliating events,  are  brushed  out,  and  the  newest 
favorites  of  the  populace  are  painted  in. 

The  forty-eight  sections  into  which  the  Revolution 
divided  the  city  changed  many  street  names,  of  section, 
and  renumbered  all  the  houses.  Each  lunatic  section, 
quite  sure  of  its  sanity,  made  this  new  numbering  of 
its  own  dwellings  with  a  cheerful  and  aggressive  dis- 
regard of  the  adjoining  sections ;  beginning  arbitrarily 
at  a  point  within  its  boundary,  going  straight  along 
through  its  streets,  and  ending  at  the  farthest  house  on 
the  edge  of  its  limits.  So,  a  house  might  be  No.  1187 
of  its  section,  and  its  next-door  neighbor  might  be  No. 
1  of  the  section  alongside.  In  a  street  that  ran  through 
several  sections  there  would  be  more  than  one  house 
of  the  same  number,  each  belonging  to  a  different  sec- 
tion. "  Encore  un  Tableau  de  Paris  "  was  published 
in  1800  by  one  Henrion,  who  complains  that  he  passed 
three  numbers  42  in  Rue  Saint-Denis  before  he  came 
to  the  42  that  he  wanted.  The  decree  of  February  7, 
1805,  gave  back  to  the  streets  many  of  their  former 
names,  and  ordered  the  numbering,  admirably  uniform 
and  intelligible,  still  in  use — even  numbers  on  one  side 
of  the  street,  odd  numbers  on  the  other  side,  both  be- 
ginning at  the  eastern  end  of  the  streets  that  run  paral- 
lel with  the  Seine,  and  at  the  river  end  of  the  streets 
going  north  and  south.  For  the  topographer  all  these 
changes  have  brought  incoherence  to  the  records,  have 
paralyzed  research,  and  crippled  accuracy.    In  addition, 


INTRODUCTORY 


during  the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth  century,  many 
old  streets  have  been  curtailed  or  lengthened,  carried 
along  into  new  streets,  or  entirely  suppressed  and  built 
over.  Indeed,  it  is  substantially  the  nineteenth  century 
that  has  given  us  the  Paris  that  we  best  know ;  begun 
by  the  great  Emperor,  it  was  continued  by  the  crown 
on  top  of  the  cotton  night-cap  of  Louis-Philippe,  and 
admirably  elaborated,  albeit  to  the  tune  of  the  cynical 
fiddling  of  the  Second  Empire.  The  Republic  of  our 
day  still  wields  the  pick-axe,  and  demolition  and  re- 
construction have  been  going  on  ruthlessly.  Such  of 
these  changes  as  are  useful  and  guiltless  are  now  in- 
telligently watched ;  such  of  them  as  are  needlessly 
destructive  may  be  stopped  in  part  by  the  admirable 
Commission  dn  Vieux  Paris.  The  members  of  this 
significant  body,  which  was  organized  in  December, 
1897,  are  picked  men  from  the  Municipal  Council, 
from  the  official  committees  of  Parisian  Inscriptions, 
and  of  Historic  Works,  from  private  associations  and 
private  citizens,  all  earnest  and  enthusiastic  for  the 
preservation  of  their  city's  monuments  that  are  mem- 
orable for  architectural  worth  or  historic  suggestion. 
Where  they  are  unable  to  save  to  the  sight  what  is 
ancient  and  picturesque,  they  save  to  the  memory  by 
records,  drawings,  and  photographs.  The  "  Proces 
Verbal  "  of  this  Commission,  issued  monthly,  contains 
its  illustrated  reports,  discussions,  and  correspondence, 
and  promises  to  become  an  historic  document  of  in- 
estimable value. 

The  words  rite  and  place,  as  well  as  their  attendant 


THE   STONES   OF  PARIS 


names,  have  been  retained  in  the  French,  as  the  only  es- 
cape from  the  confusion  of  a  double  translation,  first 
here,  and  then  back  to  the  original  by  the  sight-seer. 
The  definite  article,  that  usually  precedes  these  words, 
has  been  suppressed,  in  all  cases,  because  it  seems  an 
awkward  and  needless  reiteration.  Nor  are  French 
men  and  French  women  disguised  under  translated 
titles.  If  Macaulay  had  been  consistent  in  his  mis- 
guided Briticism  that  turned  Louis  into  Lewis,  and  had 
carried  out  that  scheme  to  its  logical  end  in  every  case, 
he  would  have  given  us  a  ludicrous  nomenclature. 
"  Bottin  "  is  used  in  these  pages  as  it  is  used  in  Paris, 
to  designate  the  city  directory :  which  was  issued,  first, 
in  a  tiny  volume,  in  1796,  by  the  publisher  Bottin,  and 
has  kept  his  name  with  its  enormous  growth  through 
the  century. 

The  word  hotel  has  here  solely  its  original  signifi- 
cance of  a  town  house  of  the  noble  or  the  wealthy.  In 
the  sense  of  our  modern  usage  of  the  word  it  had  no 
place  in  old  Paris.  Already  in  the  seventeenth  century 
there  were  auberges  for  common  wayfarers,  and  here 
and  there  an  hotcllcric  for  the  traveller  of  better  class. 
During  the  absences  of  the  owners  of  grand  city  man- 
sions, their  maitrcs-d' hotel  were  allowed  to  let  them  to 
accredited  visitors  to  the  capital,  who  brought  their 
own  retinue  and  demanded  only  shelter.  When  they 
came  with  no  train,  so  that  service  had  to  be  supplied,  it 
was  "  charged  in  the  bill,"  and  that  objectionable  item, 
thus  instituted,  has  been  handed  down  to  shock  us  in 
the  hulcl-garni  of  our  time.     With  the  emigration  of 


INTRODUCTORY 


the  nobility,  their  stewards  and  chefs  lost  place  and 
pay,  and  found  both  once  more  in  the  public  hotels  they 
then  started.  No  hotels- gar nis  can  be  found  in  Paris 
of  earlier  date  than  the  Revolution. 

In  their  explorations  into  the  libraries,  bureaus, 
museums,  and  streets  of  Paris,  the  authors  have  met 
with  countless  kindnesses.  The  unlettered  concierge 
who  guards  an  historic  house  is  proud  of  its  traditions, 
or,  if  ignorant  of  them,  as  may  chance,  will  listen  to  the 
tale  with  a  courtesy  that  simulates  sympathy.  The  ex- 
ceptions to  this  general  amenity  have  been  few  and 
ludicrous,  and  mostly  the  outcome  of  exasperation 
caused  by  the  ceaseless  questioning  of  foreigners.  The 
concierge  of  Chateaubriand's  last  home,  in  Rue  du  Bac, 
considers  a  flourish  of  the  wet  broom,  with  which  he  is 
washing  his  court,  a  fitting  rejoinder  to  the  inquiring 
visitor.  That  visitor  will  find  Balzac's  Passy  residence 
as  impossible  of  entrance  now  as  it  was  to  his  creditors. 
The  unique  inner  court  of  the  Hotel  de  Beauvais  must 
be  seen  from  the  outer  vestibule,  admission  being  re- 
fused by  a  surly  concierge  under  orders  from  an  un- 
generous owner.  The  urbanity  of  the  noble  tenant  of 
the  mansion  built  over  the  grave  of  Adrienne  Lecouv- 
reur  is  unequal  to  the  task  of  answering  civil  inquiries 
sent  in  stamped  envelopes.  All  these  are  but  shadows 
in  the  pervading  sunshine  of  Parisian  good-breeding. 
In  making  this  acknowledgment  to  the  many  who  must 
necessarily  remain  unnamed,  the  authors  wish  to  record 
their  recognition  of  the  sympathetic  counsel  of  Mile. 
Blanche  Taylor,  of  Paris,  and  of  George  H.  Birch, 


THE   STONES    OF  PARIS 


Esq.,  Curator  of  the  Soane  Museum,  London.  Cordial 
thanks  are  especially  given  to  the  officials  of  the  Hotel 
de  Ville,  in  the  bureau  of  the  Conservation  du  Plan 
de  Paris,  to  M.  Charles  Sellier  of  the  Musee  Carnavalet, 
to  M.  Monval,  Librarian  of  the  Comedie  Franchise,  to 
M.  G.  Lenotre,  and  to  M.  Victorien  Sardou,  for  un- 
measured aid  of  all  sorts,  prompted  by  a  disinterested- 
ness that  welcomes  the  importunate  fellow-worker,  and 
makes  him  forget  that  he  is  a  stranger  and  a  foreigner. 


THREE   TIME-WORN   STAIRCASES 


THREE   TIME-WORN   STAIRCASES 

We  are  to  see  a  Paris  unknown  to  the  every-day 
dweller  there,  who  is  content  to  tread,  in  wearied  idle- 
ness, his  swarming  yet  empty  boulevards ;  a  Paris  un- 
seen by  the  hurried  visitor,  anxious  to  go  his  round  of 
dutiful  sight-seeing.  This  Paris  is  far  away  from  the 
crowd,  bustling  in  pursuit  of  pleasure,  and  hustling  in 
pursuit  of  leisure;  out  of  sound  of  the  teasing  clatter 
of  cab-wheels,  and  the  tormenting  toot  of  tram-horns, 
and  the  petulant  snapping  of  whips ;  out  of  sight  of  to- 
day's pretentious  structures  and  pompous  monuments. 
To  find  this  Paris  we  must  explore  remote  quarters, 
lose  ourselves  in  untrodden  streets,  coast  along  the  al- 
luring curves  of  the  quays,  cruise  for  sequestered  isl- 
ands behind  the  multitudinous  streams  of  traffic.  We 
shall  not  push  ahead  just  to  get  somewhere,  nor  rest- 
lessly "  rush  in  to  peer  and  praise."  We  shall  learn 
to  flaner,  not  without  object,  but  with  art  and  con- 
science ;  to  saunter,  in  the  sense  of  that  word,  humor- 
ously derived  by  Thoreau  from  Sainte-Tcrre,  and  so 
transform  ourselves  into  pilgrims  to  the  spots  sacred 
in  history  and  legend,  in  art  and  literature.  In  a 
word,  if  you  go  with  us,  you  are  to  become  Sentimental 
Prowlers. 

13 


'  4 


THE   STONES    OF  PARIS 


In  this  guise,  we  shall  not  know  the  taste  of  Parisine, 
a  delectable  poison,  more  subtle  than  nicotine  or  strych- 
nine, in  the  belief  of  Nestor  Roqueplan,  that  modern 
Voltaire  of  the  boulevards.  And  we  shall  not  share 
"  the  unwholesome  passion  "  for  his  Paris,  to  which 
Francois  Coppee  owns  himself  a  victim.  Nor,  on  the 
other  hand,  shall  we  find  "  an  insipid  pleasure  "  in  this 
adventure,  as  did  Voltaire.  Yet  even  he  confesses,  else- 
where, that  one  would  "  rather  have  details  about  Ra- 
cine and  Despreaux,  Bossuet  and  Descartes,  than  about 
the  battle  of  Steinkerk.  There  is  nothing  left  but  the 
names  of  the  men  who  led  battalions  and  squadrons. 
There  is  no  return  to  the  human  race  for  one  hundred 
engagements,  but  the  great  men  I  have  spoken  of  pre- 
pared pure  and  lasting  pleasures  for  mortals  still  un- 
born." It  is  in  this  spirit  that  we  start,  sure  of  seeking 
an  unworn  sentiment,  and  of  finding  an  undraggled 
delight,  in  the  scenes  which  have  inspired,  and  have 
been  inspired  by,  famous  men  and  women.  Their  days, 
their  ways,  they  themselves  as  they  moved  and  worked, 
are  made  alive  for  us  once  more  by  their  surround- 
ings. Where  these  have  been  disturbed  by  improve- 
ments, "  more  fell  than  anguish,  hunger,  or  the  sea," 
we  get  curious  suggestions  from  some  forgotten  name 
cut  in  the  stone  of  a  street  corner,  from  a  chance-saved 
sign,  a  neglected  tour  die,  or  a  bit  of  battered  carving. 
And  where  the  modern  despoiler  has  wreaked  himself 
at  his  worst — as  with  the  Paris  of  Marot,  Rabelais, 
Palissy — we  may  rub  the  magic  ring  of  the  archaeolo- 
gist, which  brings  instant  reconstruction.     So  that  we 


THREE    TIME-WORN  STAIRCASES  15 

shall  seem  to  be  walking  in  a  vast  gallery,  where,  in  the 
words  of  Cicero,  at  each  step  we  tread  on  a  memory. 
"  For,  indeed,"  as  it  is  well  put  by  John  Ruskin,  "  the 
greatest  glory  of  a  building  is  not  in  its  stones,  or  in 
its  gold.  Its  glory  is  in  its  age,  and  in  that  deep  sense 
of  voicefulness,  of  stern  watching,  of  mysterious  sym- 
pathy, nay,  even  of  approval  or  condemnation,  which 
we  feel  in  walls  that  have  long  been  washed  by  the 
passing  waves  of  humanity." 

These  stone  and  brick  vestiges  of  the  people  of  old 
Paris  are  to  be  sought  in  its  byways,  narrow  and  wind- 
ing; or  hidden  behind  those  broad  boulevards,  that 
have  newly  opened  up  its  distant  quarters,  on  the  north 
or  on  the  south.  Sometimes  these  monuments  have 
been  brought  into  full  view  across  the  grassed  or 
gravelled  spaces  of  recent  creation,  so  showing  their 
complete  and  unmarred  glory  for  the  first  time  in  all 
the  ages.  Thus  we  may  now  look  on  Notre-Dame  and 
the  Sainte-Chapelle,  in  dreamy  surrender  to  their  be- 
dimmed  beauty,  that  persuades  us  that  Paris  can  hold 
nothing  in  reserve  more  reverend  in  comely  old  age. 
Yet,  almost  within  touch  of  these  two,  stands  a  gray 
tower,  another  sturdy  survivor  of  the  centuries.  Be- 
tween the  northern  side  of  Notre-Dame  and  the  river- 
bank,  a  happy  chance  has  spared  some  few  of  the 
streets,  though  fewer  of  the  structures,  of  this  earliest 
Paris  of  He  de  la  Cite.  This  region  recalls  to  us,  by 
its  street-names  in  part,  and  partly  by  its  buildings,  its 
former  connection  with  the  cathedral.  In  Rue  des 
Chantres  it  lodged  its  choristers,  and  Rue  du  Goitre- 


16  THE    STONES    OF  PARIS 

Notre-Dame  records  the  site  of  the  clerical  settlement, 
beloved  by  Boileau,  wherein  dwelt  its  higher  officials. 
Rue  Chanoinesse  has  its  significance,  too,  and  we  will 
stop  before  the  wide  frontage  of  differing  ages,  whose 
two  entrances,  Nos.  18  and  20,  open  into  the  large 
courts  of  two  mansions,  now  thrown  into  one.  This 
interior  court  was  a  garden  until  of  late  years,  and 
while  grass  and  flowers  are  gone  forever,  it  keeps  its 
ancient  well  in  the  centre  and  its  stone  steps  that 
mounted  to  the  salons.  Those  salons,  and  the  large 
court,  and  the  smaller  courts  beyond — all  these  courts 
now  roofed  over  with  glass — are  piled  high  with  every 
known  shape  of  household  furniture  and  utensil  in 
metal ;  notably  with  the  iron  garden-chairs  and  tables, 
dear  to  the  French.  For  this  vast  enclosure  is  the  stor- 
age depot  of  a  famous  house-furnishing  firm,  and  is  one 
more  instance  of  the  many  in  Paris  of  a  grand  old  man- 
sion and  its  dependencies  given  over  to  trade. 

By  the  courtesy  of  those  in  charge,  we  may  pass  with- 
in the  spacious  stone  entrance  arch  of  No.  18,  and  pick 
our  way  through  the  ordered  confusion,  past  the  ad- 
mirable inner  facade  of  the  main  fabric,  with  its  stately 
steps  and  portal  and  its  windows  above,  topped  by  tiny 
hoods,  to  a  distant  corner ;  where,  in  the  gloom,  we 
make  out  the  base  of  a  square  tower  and  the  foot  of  a 
corkscrew  staircase.  We  mount  it,  spirally  and  slowly. 
The  well-worn  stone  steps  are  narrow,  and  the  turn  of 
the  spiral  is  sharp,  for  this  tower  was  built  when  homes 
were  fortresses,  when  space  was  precious,  and  when 
hundreds  huddled  within  walls  that  will  hardly  hold 


THREE    TIME-WORN  STAIRCASES  17 

one  thriving  establishment  of  our  day.  In  this  steep 
ascent,  we  get  scant  assistance  from  our  hold  on  the 
rude  hand-rail,  roughly  grooved  in  the  great  central 
column — one  solid  tree-trunk,  embedded  in  the  ground, 
stretching  to  the  top  of  the  stairs.  Experts  assure  us 
that  this  tree  was  fully  five  hundred  years  old,  when  it 
was  cut  down  to  be  made  the  shaft  of  this  stairway, 
nearly  five  hundred  years  ago.  For  this  stone  tower  is 
evidently  of  late  fifteenth-century  construction.  The 
mediaeval  towers  were  round,  whether  built  upon  their 
own  foundations  or  rebuilt  from  Roman  towers ;  and 
they  gave  way  to  square  towers  when  battering-rams 
gave  way  to  guns,  in  the  fifteenth  century.  Yet  this 
pile  of  masonry  is  known  as  "  la  tour  de  Dagobcrt,"  and 
with  no  wish  to  discredit  this  legend,  cherished  by  the 
dwellers  in  this  quarter,  we  may  quote  Brantome  con- 
cerning certain  local  traditions  of  the  Tour  de  Nesle : 
"  Jc  tie  puis  dire  si  cela  soit  vrai,  mais  le  vulgaire  de 
Paris  VaMrme." 

We  can  say,  with  certainty,  that  this  tower  was  never 
seen  by  Dagobert,  for,  long  before  this  tree  had 
sprouted  from  the  ground,  he  lived  in  the  old  Palace, 
the  home  of  the  early  kings,  at  the  other  end  of  the 
island.  There  he  flourished,  for  the  ten  years  between 
628  and  638,  in  coarse  splendor  and  coarser  convivial- 
ity, his  palace  packed  with  barbaric  gold  and  silver, 
with  crude  wall  paintings  and  curious  hangings.  For 
this  monarch  made  much  of  the  arts  of  his  day,  when- 
ever he  found  leisure  from  his  fighting  and  his  drink- 
ing. Because  of  his  love  of  luxury,  a  century  of  cyclo- 
Vol.  I.— 2. 


1 8  THE  STONES   OF  PARIS 

paedias  has  "  curved  a  contumelious  lip  "  at  his  "  cor- 
rupt court."  On  the  other  hand,  he  has  been  styled 
"  Saint  Dagobert  "  by  writers  unduly  moved  to  emo- 
tion by  his  gifts  to  the  churches  at  Saint-Denis,  Rheims, 
Tours ;  and  by  his  friendship  for  certain  bishops.  But 
Rome,  mindful  of  sundry  other  churches  plundered 
and  destroyed  by  him,  has  not  assented  to  this  saint- 
ship.  We  may  accept  his  apt  popular  epithet,  "  le  bon," 
which  meant,  in  those  bellicose  days,  only  merry  or 
jovial ;  an  easy  virtue  not  to  be  denied  by  priggish 
biographers  to  this  genial  ruffian.  By  turns,  he  de- 
voted himself  to  the  flowing  bowl  in  his  palace  there, 
and  to  building  religious  edifices  all  over  the  face  of 
France.  And  he  has  accentuated  the  supremacy  of 
the  Church  over  all  the  warriors  and  the  rulers  of  his 
clay,  in  the  soaring  majesty  of  the  two  towers  that 
dominate  the  buried  outlines  of  his  favorite  church  of 
Saint-Martin  at  Tours,  solid  and  lasting  in  their  isola- 
tion. There  the  man  is  brought  almost  into  touch  with 
us,  while  here  only  his  name  is  recalled  by  this  tower, 
which  he  never  saw. 

The  shadow-land  of  ancient  French  history,  into 
which  we  have  made  this  little  journey,  is  not  darker 
than  this  narrow  staircase,  as  we  creep  dizzily  upward, 
losing  count  of  steps,  stopping  to  take  breath  at  the  in- 
frequent windows,  round-topped  at  first,  then  square 
and  small.  It  is  with  surprise  that  we  realize,  stepping 
out  on  the  tower-roof,  that  our  standing-place  is  only 
five  floors  from  the  ground ;  and  yet  from  this  modest 
height,  overtopped  by  the  ordinary  apartment  house  of 


THREE    TIME- WORN  STAIRCASES  ig 

Paris,  we  find  an  outlook  that  is  unequalled  even  by  that 
from  Notre-Dame's  towers.  For,  as  we  come  out  from 
the  sheltering  hood  of  our  stair-way  top,  the  great 
cathedral  itself  lies  before  us,  like  some  beautiful  living 
creature  outstretched  at  rest.  Words  are  impertinent 
in  face  of  the  tranquil  strength  of  its  bulk  and  the  ex- 
quisite delicacy  of  its  lines,  and  we  find  refuge  in  the 
affectionate  phrase  of  Mr.  Henry  James,  "  The  dear 
old  thing !  " 

Beyond  the  cathedral  square,  over  the  bronze  Charle- 
magne on  his  bronze  horse,  glints  the  untravelled  nar- 
rower arm  of  the  Seine  ;  we  turn  our  heads  and  look  at 
its  broader  surface,  all  astir  with  little  fidgetty  bateanx- 
mouchcs  and  big,  sedate  barges.  At  both  banks  are 
anchored  huge  wash-houses  and  bathing  establishments. 
From  this  island-centre  all  Paris  spreads  away  to  its 
low  encircling  slopes,  to  the  brim  of  the  shallow  bowl 
in  which  it  lies.  In  sharp  contrast  with  all  that  new- 
ness, our  old  tower  stands  hemmed  about  by  a  medley 
of  roofs  of  all  shapes  and  all  ages  ;  their  red  tiles  of  past 
style,  here  and  there,  agreeably  mellowing  the  dull 
dominant  blue  of  the  Paris  slate.  On  these  roofs  below 
jut  out  dormers,  armed  with  odd  wheels  and  chains  for 
lifting  odd  burdens ;  here  on  one  side  is  an  outer  stair- 
case that  starts  in  vague  shadow,  and  ends  nowhere, 
it  would  seem ;  far  down  glimmers  the  opaque  gray 
of  the  glass-covered  courts  at  our  feet.  A  little  to- 
ward the  north — where  was  an  entrance  to  this  court, 
in  old  days,  from  a  gateway  on  the  river-bank — is  the 
roof  that  sheltered  Racine,  along  with  the  legal  gen- 


THE   STONES   OF  PARIS 


try  of  the  Hotel  des  Ursins.  And  all  about  us,  be- 
low, lies  the  little  that  is  left  of  la  Cite,  the  swept 
and  set-in-order  leavings  of  that  ancient  network  of 
narrow  streets,  winding  passages,  blind  alleys,  all 
walled  about  by  tall,  scowling  houses,  leaning  unwill- 
ingly against  one  another  to  save  themselves  from 
falling.  This  was  the  whole  of  Gallic  Lutetia,  the 
centre  of  Roman  Lutetia,  the  heart  of  mediaeval  Paris, 
the  "  Alsatia  "  of  modern  Paris ;  surviving  almost  to 
our  time,  when  the  Second  Empire  let  light  and  air  into 
its  pestilent  corners.  Every  foot  of  this  ground  has  its 
history.  Down  there,  Villon,  sneaking  from  the  Uni- 
versity precincts,  stole  and  starved  and  sang;  there 
Quasimodo,  climbing  down  from  his  tower,  foraged 
for  his  scant  supplies ;  there  Sue's  impossibly  dark  vil- 
lany  and  equally  impossible  virtue  found  fitting  stage- 
setting;  there,  Francois,  honest  and  engaging  thief, 
slipped  narrowly  through  the  snares  that  encompassed 
even  vagabonds,  in  the  suspicious  days  and  nights  of 
the  Terror. 

The  nineteenth  century,  cutting  its  clean  way  through 
this  sinister  quarter,  cutting  away  with  impartial  spade 
the  round  dozen  churches  and  the  hundreds  of  houses 
that  made  their  parishes,  all  clustered  close  about  the 
cathedral  and  the  palace,  has  happily  left  untouched  this 
gray  tower,  built  when  or  for  what  no  one  knows.  It  is 
a  part  of  all  that  it  has  seen,  in  its  sightless  way,  through 
the  changing  centuries  of  steady  growth  and  of  tran- 
sient mutilation  of  its  town.  It  has  seen  its  own  island 
and  the  lesser  islands  up-stream  gradually  alter  their 


THREE    TIME-WORN  STAIRCASES  21 

shapes;  this  island  of  the  city  lengthening  itself,  hy 
reaching  out  for  the  two  low-shored  grassy  eyots  down- 
stream, where  now  is  Place  Dauphine  and  where  sits 
Henri  IV.  on  his  horse.  The  narrow  channel  between, 
that  gave  access  to  the  water-gate  of  the  old  Palace, 
has  been  filled  in,  so  making  one  island  of  the  three, 
and  Rue  de  Harlay-au-Palais  covers  the  joining  line. 
So  the  two  islands  on  the  east — He  Notre-Dame  and 
lie  aux  Vaches — have  united  their  shores  to  make  lie 
Saint-Louis.  The  third  island,  most  easterly  of  all — 
lie  des  Javiaux  of  earliest  times,  known  later  as  lie 
Louvier — has  been  glued  to  the  northern  bank  of  the 
mainland,  by  the  earthing-in  of  the  thin  arm  of  the 
river,  along  the  line  of  present  Boulevard  Morland, 
and  Quai  Henri  IV.  And  the  two  great  islands  as  we 
know  them — the  permanent  outcome  of  all  these  topo- 
graphical transformations — have  been  chained  to  each 
other  and  to  both  banks,  by  numerous  beautiful  bridges. 
Our  tower  raised  its  head  in  time  to  see  the  gradual 
wearing  away  of  the  mighty  Roman  aqueduct,  that 
brought  water  to  the  Palais  des  Thermes  of  the  Roman 
rulers — whose  immense  frigidarium  is  safe  and  sound 
within  the  enclosure  of  the  Cluny  Museum — from  the 
Bievre,  away  off  on  the  southern  outskirts.  This  aque- 
duct started  at  the  point  where  later  was  built  the  vil- 
lage of  Arceuil — named  from  the  mediaeval,  or  late, 
Latin  Arculi — where  was  quarried  the  best  stone  that 
builded  old  Paris ;  and  curved  with  the  valley  of  the 
Bievre  like  a  huge  railway  viaduct,  leaving  that  stream 
when  it  bent  in  its  course  to  the  Seine  near  the  Sal- 


THE   STONES    OF   PARIS 


petriere,  and  entering  the  town  along  the  easterly  line 
of  Rue  Saint-Jacques,  and  so  straight  away  to  the 
baths.  This  tower  well  remembers  the  new  aqueduct, 
constructed  massively  on  the  ruins  of  the  Roman,  be- 
tween 1613  and  1633,  from  Rungis,  still  farther  south, 
to  the  Luxembourg  Palace.  Imperial  and  royal  baths 
must  have  pure  water,  while  wells  and  rivers  must 
perforce  content  the  townspeople.  They  had  their 
aqueduct  at  last,  however,  laid,  still  along  the  top  of 
these  others,  during  the  Second  Empire.  It  is  worth 
the  little  trip  by  rail  to  Arceuil  to  see  the  huge  arches 
that  climb  along  the  valley  carrying  these  piled-up 
conduits. 

Our  old  tower  has  seen  the  baby  town  creep,  from 
its  cradle  on  the  shore,  up  that  southern  slope  to  where 
on  its  summit  it  found  the  tomb  of  its  patron,  Sainte 
Genevieve — one  tower  of  her  abbey  still  shows  gray 
above  the  garden-walls  of  Lycee  Henri  IV. — and 
thence,  its  strength  so  grown  as  to  burst  its  girdle 
of  restraining  wall,  it  strode  far  afield.  Roman  and 
Christian  settlements,  with  all  their  greenery — palace, 
abbey,  and  school,  each  set  within  its  spacious  gar- 
dens— gradually  gave  place  to  these  serried  shining 
roofs  we  see,  here  and  there  pierced  by  church  spires 
and  punctuated  by  domes.  And  on  the  northern  bank, 
our  tower  has  seen  the  rising  tide  of  the  centuries 
swallow  up  the  broad  marshes  along  the  shore  and 
the  wide  woodlands  behind ;  bearing  down  Roman 
villa  and  temple,  Christian  nunnery  and  monastery, 
washing  away  each  successive  breakwater  of  wall,  un- 


THREE    TIME-WORN  STAIRCASES  23 

til  it  surged  over  the  crest  of  the  encircling  hills,  now 
crowned  by  the  imposing  basilica  of  the  Sacred  Heart 
on  Montmartre. 

It  may  have  been  here  in  time  to  look  down  on  the 
stately  procession  escorting  the  little  ten-year-old 
Henry  IV.,  the  new  King  of  England,  from  the  Palace 
to  the  cathedral ;  wherein  was  celebrated  the  service 
by  which  one  English  cardinal  and  two  French  bishops 
tried  to  consecrate  him  King  of  France.  It  saw,  when 
the  ceremony  was  ended,  the  turbulent  mob  of  common 
French  folk  crowding  about  the  boy-king  and  his  Eng- 
lish escort  as  they  returned,  and  ignominiously  hustling 
them  into  the  Palace.  Not  many  years  later,  on  April 
13,  1436,  it  possibly  saw  the  French  soldiery  march 
into  Place  de  Greve,  over  the  bridge  and  through  the 
streets  behind,  from  their  captured  gate  of  Saint- 
Jacques;  and  not  many  days  thereafter,  the  English 
soldiery  hurrying  along  behind  the  northern  wall  from 
the  Bastille  to  the  Louvre,  and  there  taking  boat  for 
their  sail  to  Rouen ;  the  while  the  Parisian  populace, 
mad  with  joy  on  that  wall,  welcomed  the  incoming 
friend  and  cursed  the  outgoing  foe. 

Our  tower  has  watched,  from  its  own  excellent  point 
of  view,  the  three  successive  fires  in  and  about  the 
Palace,  in  1618,  1736,  and  1776.  Between  them,  these 
fires  carried  away  the  constructions  of  Louis  XII.,  the 
vast  Salle  des  Pas-Perdus,  the  ancient  donjon,  the 
spires  and  turrets  and  steep  roofs  that  swarmed  about 
the  Sainte-Chapelle,  whose  slender  height  seems  to 
spring  more  airily  from  earth  to  sky  by  that  clearance. 


24  THE   STONES    OF  PARIS 

Only  that  chapel,  the  Salle-des-Gardes,  the  corner 
tower  on  the  quay,  the  kitchens  of  Saint-Louis  behind 
it,  and  the  round-capped  towers  of  the  Conciergerie, 
are  left  of  the  original  palace.  The  present  outer  cas- 
ing of  this  Tour  de  l'Horloge  is  a  restoration  of  that 
existing  in  1585,  but  the  thirteenth-century  fabric  re- 
mains, and  the  foundations  are  far  earlier,  in  the  view 
of  the  late  Viollet-le-Duc.  Its  clock  dates  from  1370, 
having  been  twice  restored,  and  its  bell  has  sounded, 
as  far  as  our  tower,  the  passing  of  many  historic  hours. 
It  rang  menacingly  an  hour  later  than  that  of  Saint- 
Germain-l'Auxerrois,  which  had  been  advanced  by 
the  queen-mother's  eagerness,  on  Saint  Bartholomew's 
night.  It  was  en  carillon  all  of  Friday,  June  12,  1598, 
for  the  peace  procured  by  Henri  IV.  between  Spain 
and  Savoy ;  and  the  birth  of  his  son  was  saluted  by 
its  joyous  chimes,  at  two  o'clock  of  the  afternoon  of 
Friday,  September  28,  1601. 

Nearly  two  years  later — on  Friday,  June  20,  1603 — 
our  tower  stared  in  consternation,  out  over  the  end  of 
the  island,  at  the  gallant  Henry  treading  jauntily  and 
safely  across  the  uncompleted  arches  of  the  Pont-Neuf, 
from  shore  to  shore.  The  new  bridge  was  a  wonder, 
and  in  attempts  to  climb  along  its  skeleton,  many  over- 
curious  citizens  had  tumbled  into  the  river ;  "  but  not 
one  of  them  a  king,"  laughed  their  king,  after  his  suc- 
cessful stepping  over.  The  bridge  was  built  slowly, 
and  was  at  last  ready  for  traffic  on  February  6,  1607, 
and  has  stood  so  strong  and  stable  ever  since,  that  it 
has  passed  into  a  proverb  as  the  common  comparison 


THREE    TIME-WORN  STAIRCASES  25 

for  a  Frenchman's  robust  health.  It  is  the  only  bridge 
between  the  islands  and  either  bank  that  has  so  stood, 
and  this  tower  has  seen  each  of  the  others  wrecked  by 
fire  or  flood.  The  tall  wooden  piles,  on  which  the  mediae- 
val bridgeways  were  built,  slowly  rotted,  until  they  were 
carried  away  by  the  fierce  current.  And  fire  found  its 
frequent  quarry  in  the  tall  houses  that  lined  either  side 
of  the  roadway,  shops  on  the  lower  floor,  and  tenants 
above. 

Thus  our  tower  doubtless  heard,  on  Friday,  October 
25,  1499,  the  wrenching  and  groaning  of  the  huge 
wooden  piles  of  Pont  Notre-Dame — its  first  pile  driven 
down  by  temporarily  sane  Charles  VI. — as  they  bent 
and  broke  and  tumbled  into  the  Seine,  with  their  bur- 
den of  roadway  and  of  buildings ;  whereby  so  thick  a 
cloud  of  dust  rose  up  from  the  water,  that  rescue  of  the 
inmates  was  almost  impossible.  Among  the  few  saved, 
on  that  calamitous  holiday  of  Saint-Crespin  and  Saint- 
Crespinien,  was  a  baby  found  floating  down-stream  in 
its  cradle,  unwet  and  unharmed.  So,  too,  Pont  aux 
Meuniers  and  all  its  houses  and  mills  fell  in  fragments 
into  the  stream  on  December  22,  1596.  It  was  a 
wooden  bridge,  connecting  the  island  end  of  Pont  au 
Change  diagonally  with  the  shore  of  the  mainland. 
It  is  reported  that  the  dwellers  on  the  bridge  were 
rich  men,  many  of  them  slayers  and  plunderers  of 
the  Huguenots  on  the  festival  of  Saint  Bartholomew. 
So  it  was  said  that  the  weak  hand  of  city  supervision, 
neglecting  the  bridge,  was  aided  by  the  finger  of  God, 
pushing  it  down ! 


26  THE   STONES    OF  PARIS 

The  Petit-Pont  dropped  into  the  Seine  no  less  than 
six  times  between  the  years  1206  and  1393.  The  earli- 
est Roman  bridge,  it  had  carried  more  traffic  than  any 
later  bridge,  and  had  been  ruined  and  reconstructed 
time  and  again,  until  stone  took  the  place  of  wood  for 
its  arches  and  road-way  and  houses.  But  the  wooden 
scaffoldings  used  for  the  new  construction  were  left  be- 
low, and  were  the  means  of  sacrificing  it  to  an  old 
woman's  superstition.  On  April  27,  1718,  she  launched 
a  sebile — a  wooden  bowl — carrying  a  bit  of  blessed 
bread  and  a  lighted  taper,  in  the  belief  that  this  holy  raft 
would  stop  over,  and  point  out,  the  spot  where  lay  the 
body  of  her  drowned  son.  The  taper  failed  in  its 
sacred  mission,  and  set  fire  to  a  barge  loaded  with  hay, 
and  this  drifted  against  the  timbers  under  the  arches, 
and  soon  the  entire  bridge  went  up  in  flames.  When 
again  rebuilt,  no  houses  were  allowed  upon  it.  With 
the  falling  of  all  those  bridges  and  all  that  they  held, 
the  river-bed  grew  thick  with  every  sort  of  object,  com- 
mon and  costly.  Coins  from  many  mints  found  their 
way  there,  not  only  through  fire  and  flood,  but  because 
the  money-changers,  warily  established  on  the  bridges, 
dropped  many  an  illicit  piece  from  their  convenient  win- 
dows into  the  river,  rather  than  let  themselves  be  caught 
in  passing  counterfeits.  This  water  museum  has  been 
dragged  from  time  to  time,  and  the  treasures  have  gone 
to  enrich  various  collections,  notably  that  of  M.  Vic- 
torien  Sardou. 

With  all  helpless  Paris,  our  tower  watched  the  old 
Hotel-Dieu — on  the  island's  southern  bank,  where  now 


THREE    TIME- IVOR. V  STAIRCASES  27 

is  the  green  open  space  between  Petit-Pont  and  Pont 
au  Double — burning  away  for  eleven  days  in  1772,  and 
caught  glimpses  of  the  rescued  patients,  carried  across 
Place  du  Parvis  to  hastily  improvised  wards  in  the 
nave  of  Notre-Dame. 

Unscathed  by  fire,  unmutilated  by  man,  unwearied 
by  watching,  "  Dagobert's  Tower  "  stands,  penned  in 
by  the  high  old  buildings  that  shoulder  it  all  around. 
Hidden  behind  them,  it  is  unseen  and  forgotten.  The 
only  glimpses  to.  be  got  of  its  gray  bulk  are,  one  from 
the  neighboring  tower  of  the  cathedral,  and  another 
from  the  deck  of  a  river-boat  as  it  glides  under  Pont 
d'Arcole ;  a  glimpse  to  be  caught  quickly,  amid  the 
quick-changing  views  of  the  ever-varied  perspective  of 
the  island's  towers  and  buttresses,  pinnacles  and  domes. 

Far  away  from  the  island  and  its  river,  over  the  edge 
of  the  southern  slope,  behind  the  distant,  dreary,  outer 
boulevards,  we  find  another  ancient  staircase.  It  is 
within  the  vast  structure  known  as  "  la  maison  dite  de 
Saint  Louis,"  commonly  called  the  "  Hotel  dc  la  Reine 
Blanche."  The  modern  boulevard,  which  gets  its  name 
from  the  astronomer,  philosopher,  and  politician,  Arago, 
has  made  a  clean  sweep  through  this  historic  quarter, 
but  it  has  spared  this  mansion  and  the  legend,  which 
makes  it  the  suburban  dwelling  of  Blanche  of  Castile. 
Hereabout  was  all  country  then,  and  a  favorite  sum- 
mer resort  of  the  wealthy  citizens,  whose  modest  cot- 
tages and  showy  villas  clustered  along  the  banks  of  the 
Bievre ;  a  free  and  wilful  stream  in  the  early  years  of 
the  thirteenth  century,  often  in  revolt  and  sometimes 


28  THE   STONES    OF  PARIS 

misleading  the  sedate  Seine  into  escapades,  to  the  dis- 
quiet of  these  faubourgs.  From  its  gardens,  portly 
meadows  smiled  townward  to  Mont-Sainte-Genevieve, 
crowded  with  its  schools,  and  to  the  convent  gardens, 
snuggling  close  under  the  shelter  of  the  southern  wall 
of  Philippe-Auguste. 

To-day,  all  this  quarter  is  made  malodorous  by  its 
many  tanneries  and  dye-works ;  they  have  enslaved  the 
tiny  Bievre  and  stained  it  to  a  dirty  reddish  brown ;  so 
that  it  crawls,  slimy  and  sluggish  and  ashamed,  between 
their  surly  walls  and  beneath  bedraggled  bridges,  glad 
to  sink  into  the  Seine,  under  the  Orleans  railway  sta- 
tion. Its  gardens  and  meadows  are  covered  by  square 
miles  of  stone,  and  the  line  of  the  old  wall  is  hidden 
behind  and  under  modern  streets.  And  this  so-called 
country  home  of  Queen  Blanche,  become  plain  No.  17 
Rue  des  Gobelins,  yet  refuses,  in  its  mediaeval  dignity, 
to  regard  itself  as  a  mere  number  in  a  street,  and  with- 
draws behind  its  wall,  its  shoulder  aslant,  to  express  its 
royal  unconcern  for  the  straight  lines  of  city  surveyors. 
These  have  not  yet  stolen  all  its  old-time  character  from 
the  remaining  section  of  the  street,  nor  spoiled  such  of 
its  old-time  faqades  as  are  left.  This  one  at  No.  19  de- 
mands our  especial  scrutiny,  by  its  significant  portal 
and  windows,  and  by  the  belief  that  it  was  originally 
joined  in  its  rear  to  No.  17,  the  two  forming  one  im- 
mense structure  of  the  same  style  of  architecture. 
When  was  its  date,  who  was  its  builder,  what  was  its 
use,  arc  undisclosed,  so  far,  and  we  may  follow  our 
own  fancies,  as  wc  enter  through  the  narrow  gateway 


The  So-called  Hotel  de  la  Reine  Blanche. 

(Frum  a  photograph  of  the  Commission  du   Yieux  Paris. 


THREE   TIME-WORN  STAIRCASES  29 

into  the  front  court  of  "  Queen  Blanche's  house."  Its 
main  fabric  on  the  ground  floor,  with  its  low  arched 
window,  insists  that  it  is  contemporary  with  the  clever 
woman  and  capable  queen,  to  whom  legend,  wider 
than  merely  local,  brings  home  this  building.  Yet 
its  upper  windows,  and  the  dormers  of  the  wing,  and 
the  slope  of  the  roof,  suggest  a  late  fifteenth  or  an 
early  sixteenth  century  origin ;  and  the  cornice-mould- 
ing is  so  well  worked  out  that  it  speaks  plainly  of  a 
much  later  date  than  the  mediaeval  fortress-home.  In 
a  tourelle  at  either  end  is  a  grand  spiral  staircase,  as  in 
Dagobert's  Tower,  and,  like  that,  these  turn  on  huge 
central  oak  trunks.  Here,  however,  the  steps  are  less 
abrupt ;  the  grooving  of  the  hand-rail,  while  it  testifies 
to  the  stroke  of  the  axe,  is  less  rude ;  and  daylight  is 
welcomed  by  wider  windows.  Each  of  the  three  floors, 
that  lie  between  the  two  staircase  turrets,  is  made  up 
of  one  vast  hall,  with  no  traces  of  division  walls. 
Whether  or  no  a  Gobelin  once  made  usage  of  this  build- 
ing, as  has  been  claimed,  it  has  now  come  into  a  tan- 
ner's service,  and  his  workmen  tread  its  stairs  and 
halls,  giving  a  living  touch  of  our  workaday  world 
to  these  walls  of  dead  feudalism. 

It  was  in  1200  that  Blanche  of  Castile  was  brought  to 
France,  a  girl  of  twelve,  for  her  marriage  with  little 
Louis,  of  the  same  ripe  age.  His  father,  Philippe-Au- 
guste,  was  a  mighty  builder,  and  Paris  flourished  under 
him,  her  "  second  founder."  In  the  intervals  between 
crusades  against  infidels  and  wars  with  Christians,  he 
founded  colleges  and  gave  other  aid  to  the  university  on 


3o  THE   STONES   OF  PARIS 

this  bank ;  he  pushed  on  with  his  strong  hand  the  build- 
ing of  Notre-Dame  and  of  the  old  Hotel-Dieu  on  the 
island ;  he  removed  his  residence  from  the  ancient 
Palace,  there,  to  the  Louvre  on  the  northern  bank,  con- 
structed by  him  to  that  end — his  huge  foundation-walls, 
with  some  few  capitals  and  mouldings,  may  be  seen 
deep  down  in  the  substructures  of  the  present  Louvre 
— he  shut  in  the  unfenced  cemetery  of  the  Innocents 
from  the  merry-makers  who  profaned  it ;  he  roofed  and 
walled-in  the  open  markets  in  the  fields  hard  by  that 
burial-ground ;  and  he  paved  the  streets  of  the  Cite. 
To  meet  this  last  outlay,  he  was  lavish  with  the  money 
of  the  citizens,  notably  of  Gerard  de  Poissy,  who  was 
moved  to  donate  one-half  of  his  entire  fortune  by  the 
sight  of  the  King,  "  sparing  neither  pains  nor  expense 
in  beautifying  the  town."  Sparing  himself  no  pains 
for  the  bettering  of  his  beloved  capital,  Philippe-Au- 
guste  spared  no  expense  to  its  worthy  burghers,  and  in 
their  purses  he  found  the  funds  for  his  great  wall.  This 
he  planned  and  began,  toward  the  close  of  the  twelfth 
century,  when  at  home  for  awhile  from  the  warfaring, 
during  which  he  had  captured  the  "  saucy  Chateau- 
Gaillard  "  of  his  former  fellow-crusader,  Richard  the 
Lion-Hearted. 

Around  the  early  Lutctia  on  the  island,  with  the  river 
for  its  moat,  there  had  been  a  Gallo-Roman  wall,  well 
known  to  us  all ;  and  there  was  a  later  wall,  concern- 
ing which  none  of  us  know  much.  We  may  learn  no 
more  than  that  it  was  a  work  of  Louis  VI.,  "  le  Gros," 
early  in  the  twelfth  century,  and  that  it  enclosed  the 


THREE   TIME-WORN  STAIRCASES  31 

city's  small  suburbs  on  both  banks  of  the  mainland. 
Where  this  wall  abutted  on  the  two  bridge-heads  that 
gave  access  to  the  island,  Louis  VI.  converted  the 
wooden  towers — already  placed  there  for  the  protection 
of  these  approaches  by  Charles  II.,  "  le  Chauve,"  in  the 
ninth  century — into  great  gateways  and  small  citadels, 
all  of  stone.  They  were  massive,  grim,  sinister  struct- 
ures, and  when  their  service  as  fortresses  was  finished, 
they  were  used  for  prisons ;  both  equally  infamous  in 
cruelty  and  horror.  The  Petit  Chatelet  was  a  donjon 
tower,  and  guarded  the  southern  approach  to  the  island 
by  way  of  the  ancient  main-road  of  the  Gaul  and  the 
Roman,  known  later  as  the  Voie  du  Midi,  and  later 
again  as  the  Route  d'Orleans,  and  now  as  Rue  Saint- 
Jacques.  This  chatelet  stood  at  the  head  of  Petit- 
Pont,  on  the  ground  where  Quais  Saint-Michel  and 
Montebello  meet  now,  and  was  not  demolished  until 
late  in  the  eighteenth  century.  The  Grand  Chatelet 
ended  the  northern  wall  where  it  met  Pont  au  Change, 
and  its  gloomy  walls,  and  conical  towers  flanking  a 
frowning  portal,  were  pick-axed  away  only  in  1802.  It 
had  held  no  prisoners  since  Necker  induced  Louis  XVI. 
to  institute,  in  La  Force  and  other  jails,  what  were  gro- 
tesquely entitled  "  model  prisons."  On  the  building  that 
faces  the  northern  side  of  Place  du  Chatelet  you  will 
find  an  elaborate  tablet  holding  the  plan  of  the  dreary 
fortress  and  the  appalling  prison.  When  we  stroll 
about  the  open  space  that  its  destruction  has  left,  and 
that  bears  the  bad  old  name,  we  need  not  lament  its  loss. 
Then  came  the  wall  of  Philippe-Auguste,  grandly 


32  THE   STONES    OF  PARIS 

planned  to  enclose  the  closely  knit  island  Cite  and  its 
straggling  suburbs  on  either  bank,  with  all  their  gar- 
dens, vineyards,  and  fields  far  out;  and  solidly  con- 
structed, with  nearly  thirty  feet  of  squared-stone  height, 
and  nearly  ten  feet  of  cemented  rubble  between  the 
strong  side  faces.  Its  heavy  parapet  was  battlemented, 
numerous  round  towers  bulged  from  its  outer  side,  the 
frequent  gates  had  stern  flanking  towers,  and  the  four 
ends  on  both  river-banks  were  guarded  by  enormous 
towers,  really  small  fortresses.  The  westernmost  tower 
on  this  southern  shore — with  which  section  of  the  wall, 
built  slowly  from  1208  to  1220,  we  are  now  concerned — 
was  the  Tour  de  Nesle,  and  its  site  is  shown  by  a 
tablet  on  the  quay-front  of  the  eastern  wing  of  the 
Institute.  Alongside  was  the  important  Porte  de  Nesle. 
Thence  the  wall  went  southwesterly,  behind  the  line 
made  by  the  present  Rues  Mazarine  and  Monsieur-le- 
Prince ;  then,  by  its  great  curve  just  north  of  Rue  des 
Fosses-Saint-Jacques,  it  safeguarded  the  tomb  and  the 
abbey  of  Sainte  Genevieve,  and  so  bent  sharply  around 
toward  the  northeast,  within  the  line  of  present  Rues 
Thouin,  du  Cardinal-Lemoine,  and  des  Fosses-Saint- 
Bernard,  to  the  easternmost  tower  on  Ouai  de  la  Tour- 
nelle,  and  its  river-gate,  Porte  Saint-Bernard.  That 
gate,  standing  until  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
had  been  titillated  into  a  triumphal  arch  for  Louis  XIV., 
in  whose  time  this  quay  was  a  swell  promenade  and 
drive.  It  still  retains  one  of  its  grand  mansions,  the 
Hotel  Clermont-Tonnerre,  at  No.  27  on  the  quay,  with 
a  well-preserved  portal. 


THREE    TIME-WORN  STAIRCASES  33 

Of  the  stately  sweep  of  this  wall  we  may  get  sugges- 
tive glimpses  by  the  various  tablets,  that  show  the  sites 
of  the  tennis  courts  made  later  on  its  outer  side,  and 
that  mark  the  places  of  the  gates ;  such  as  the  tablet  at 
No.  44  Rue  Dauphine.  The  street  and  gate  of  that 
name  date  from  1607,  when  Henri  IV.  constructed  them 
as  the  southern  outlet  from  his  Pont-Neuf,  and  named 
them  in  honor  of  the  first  dauphin  born  to  France  since 
Catherine  de'  Medici's  puny  sons.  This  Porte  Dauphine 
took  the  place,  and  very  nearly  the  site,  of  the  original 
Porte  de  Buci,  which  stood  over  the  western  end  of  our 
Rue  Saint- Andre-des-Arts,  and  was  done  away  with  in 
the  cutting  of  Rue  Dauphine.  There  was  a  gate,  cut 
a  few  years  after  the  completion  of  the  wall,  opening 
into  the  present  triangular  space  made  by  the  meeting 
of  Rue  de  l'Ecole-de-Medecine  and  Boulevard  Saint- 
Germain,  and  this  gate  bore  this  latter  name.  Of  the 
original  gates,  that  next  beyond  Porte  de  Buci  was 
Porte  Saint-Michel,  a  small  postern  that  stood  almost 
in  the  centre  of  the  meeting-place  of  Boulevard  Saint- 
Michel  and  Rues  Monsieur-le-Prince  and  Soufflot. 
Next  came  the  important  Porte  Saint- Jacques,  mount- 
ing guard  over  the  street  now  of  that  name,  nearly 
where  it  crosses  the  southern  side  of  new  Rue  Soufflot, 
named  in  honor  of  the  architect  of  the  Pantheon.  On 
that  southwest  corner  is  a  tablet  with  a  plan  of  the  gate. 
It  was  a  gate  well  watched  by  friends  within,  and  foes 
without,  coming  up  by  this  easy  road.  Dunois  gained 
it,  more  by  seduction  than  force,  and  entered  with  his 

French  troops,  driving  the  English  before  him,  on  the 
Vol.  I.— 3 


34  THE   STONES   OF  PARIS 

morning  of  Friday,  April  13,  1436;  and  Henry  of 
Navarre  failed  to  gain  it  by  force  from  the  League,  on 
the  night  of  September  10,  1590.  Stand  in  front  of 
Nos.  174  and  176  of  widened  Rue  Saint- Jacques,  and 
you  are  on  the  spot  where  he  tried  to  scale  that  gate, 
again  and  again. 

More  than  suggestions  of  the  wall  itself  may  be  got 
by  actual  sight  of  sections  that  survive,  despite  the  as- 
sertions of  authorities  that  no  stone  is  left.  At  the  end 
of  Impasse  de  Nevers,  within  a  locked  gate,  you  may  see 
a  presumable  bit.  In  the  court  that  lies  behind  Nos. 
2J  and  29  Rue  Guenegaud  is  a  stable,  and  deep  in  the 
shadow  of  that  stable  lurks  a  round  tower  of  Philippe- 
Auguste,  massive  and  unmarred.  At  No.  4  Cour  du 
Commerce  a  locksmith  has  his  shop,  and  he  hangs  his- 
keys  and  iron  scraps  on  nails  driven  with  difficulty  be- 
tween the  tightly  fitted  blocks  of  another  round  tower. 
Turn  the  corner  into  Cour  de  Rohan — a  corruption  of 
Rouen,  whose  archbishop  had  his  town-house  here — 
and  you  shall  find  a  narrow  iron  stairway,  that  mounts 
the  end  of  the  sliced-off  wall,  and  that  carries  you  to  a 
tiny  garden,  wherein  small  schoolgirls  play  on  the  very 
top  of  that  wall.  Down  at  the  end  of  Cour  de  Rohan 
is  an  ancient  well,  dating  from  the  day  when  this  court 
lay  within  the  grounds  of  the  Hotel  de  Navarre,  the 
property  of  Louis  of  Orleans  before  he  became  Louis 
XII.  In  style  it  was  closely  akin  to  the  Hotel  de  Cluny, 
and  it  is  a  sorrow  that  it  is  lost  to  us.  Its  entrance  was 
at  the  present  Nos.  49  and  51  of  Rue  Saint-Andre-des- 
ArtS,  and  the  very  ancient  walls  in  the  rear  court  of 


THREE    TIME-WORN  STAIRCASES  35 

the  latter  house  may  have  belonged  to  the  Hotel  de 
Navarre.  When  Louis  sold  this  property,  one  por- 
tion was  bought  by  Dr.  Coictier,  who  had  amassed 
wealth  as  the  physician  of  Louis  XL,  and  this  well 
was  long  known  by  his  name.  It  has  lost  its  metal- 
work,  which  was  as  fine  as  that  of  the  well  once  owned 
by  Tristan  l'Hermite,  Coictier's  crony,  and  now  placed 
in  the  court  of  the  Cluny  Museum. 

Continuing  along  the  course  of  the  great  wall,  we 
find  a  longer  section,  whereon  houses  have  been  built, 
and  another  garden.  At  the  end  of  the  hallway  of  No. 
47  Rue  Descartes  is  a  narrow  stairway,  by  which  we 
mount  to  the  row  of  cottages  on  top  of  the  wall,  and 
beyond  them  is  a  small  domain  containing  trees  and 
bushes  and  flower-beds,  and  all  alive  with  fowls.  Still 
farther,  in  a  vacant  lot  in  Rue  Clovis,  which  has  cut 
deep  through  the  hill,  a  broken  end  of  the  wall  hangs 
high  above  us  on  the  crest,  showing  both  solid  faces  and 
the  rubble  between.  Its  outer  face  forms  the  rear  of 
the  court  at  No.  62  Rue  du  Cardinal-Lemoine.  Still 
another  section  can  be  seen  in  the  inner  court  of  No. 
9  Rue  d'Arras,  its  great  square  stones  serving  as 
foundation  for  high  houses.  And  this  is  the  last  we 
shall  see  of  this  southern  half  of  the  wall  of  Philippe- 
Auguste. 

When  that  monarch  lay  dying  at  Mantes,  he  found 
comfort  in  the  thought  that  he  was  leaving  his  Paris 
safe  in  the  competent  hands  of  his  daughter-in-law — 
whose  beauty,  sense,  and  spirit  had  won  him  early — 
rather  than  in  the  gentle  hold  of  his  son,  misnamed  "  le 


36  THE   STONES    OF  PARIS 

Lion."  He  lived,  as  Louis  VIII.,  only  three  years,  and 
"la  rcinc  blanche"  (the  widowed  queens  of  France 
wore  white  for  mourning,  until  Anne  of  Brittany  put 
on  black  for  her  first  husband,  Charles  VIII.)  became 
the  sole  protector  of  her  twelve-year-old  son,  on  whom 
she  so  doted  as  to  be  jealous  of  the  wife  she  had  her- 
self found  for  him.  She  ruled  him  and  his  hitherto 
unruly  nobles,  and  cemented  his  kingdom,  fractured 
by  local  jealousies.  He  is  known  to  history  as  Saint 
Louis,  fit  to  sit  alongside  Marcus  Aurelius,  in  the 
equal  conscience  they  put  into  their  kingly  duties. 
Voltaire  himself  ceases  to  sneer  in  the  presence  of  this 
monarch's  unselfish  devotion  to  his  people,  and  gives 
him  praise  as  unstinted  as  any  on  record. 

His  Paris,  the  Paris  of  his  mother  and  his  grand-" 
father,  was  made  up  of  la  Cite  on  the  island,  under  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  bishop ;  the  northern  suburb,  ontre- 
Grand-Pont  or  la  Ville,  governed  by  the  Prevot  des 
Marchands;  the  southern  suburb,  ontrc-Petit-Pont  or 
I'Universite,  appertaining  to  the  " Rectenr" ' ;  all  ruled 
by  the  Prevot  of  Paris,  appointed  by  and  accountable  to 
the  King  alone.  Hugo's  "  little  old  lady  between  her 
two  promising  daughters  "  holds  good  to-day,  when  the 
daughters  are  strapping  wenches,  and  have  not  yet  got 
their  growth.  In  all  three  sections,  the  priest  and  the 
soldier — twin  foes  of  light  and  life  in  all  times  and  in 
all  lands — had  their  own  way.  They  cumbered  the 
ground  with  their  fortresses  and  their  monasteries,  all 
bestowed  within  spacious  enclosures ;  so  walling-in  for 
their  favored  dwellers,  and  walling-out  from  the  com- 


THREE    TIME-IVOR  AT  STAIRCASES  37 

mon  herd  outside,  the  air  and  sun,  green  sights,  and 
pleasant  scents.  There  were  no  open  spaces  for  the 
people  of  mediaeval  days.  Indeed,  there  were  no  "  peo- 
ple," in  our  meaning  of  that  word.  The  stage  direction, 
"  Enter  Populace,"  expresses  their  state.  There  were 
peasants  in  the  fields,  toilers  in  the  towns,  vassals,  all 
of  them — villains,  legally — allowed  to  live  by  the  sol- 
dier, that  they  might  pay  for  his  fighting,  and  serve  as 
food  for  his  steel ;  sheep  let  graze  by  the  priest,  to  be 
sheared  for  the  Church  and  to  be  burned  at  the  stake. 
This  populace  looked  on  at  these  burnings,  at  the  cut- 
ting out  of  tongues  and  slicing  off  of  ears  and  hacking 
away  of  hands  by  their  lords,  in  dumb  terror  and  docile 
submission.  More  than  death  or  mutilation,  did  they 
dread  the  ban  of  the  Church  and  the  lash  of  its  menac- 
ing bell.  Their  only  diversion  was  made  by  royal  pro- 
cessions, by  church  festivals,  by  public  executions.  So 
went  on  the  dreary  round  of  centuries,  in  a  dull  color- 
less terror,  until  it  was  time  for  the  coming  of  the 
short,  sharp  Terror  dyed  red.  Then  the  White  Terror, 
that  came  with  the  Restoration,  benumbed  the  land  for 
awhile,  and  the  tricolored  effrontery  of  the  Second 
Empire  held  it  in  grip.  Against  all  royalist  and  im- 
perial reaction,  the  lesser  revolutions  of  the  nineteenth 
century  have  kept  alive  the  essential  spirit  of  the  great 
Revolution  of  1789,  inherited  by  them,  and  handed 
down  to  the  present  Republic,  that  the  assured  ultimate 
issue  may  be  fought  out  under  its  Tricolor.  France, 
the  splendid  creature,  once  more  almost  throttled  by 
priest  and  soldier,  has  saved  herself  by  the  courage  of 


38  THE   STONES    OF  PARIS 

a  national  conscience,  such  as  has  not  been  matched 
by  any  land  in  any  crisis. 

They  who  by  the  grace  of  God  and  the  stupidity  of 
man  owned  and  ordered  these  human  cattle  of  the 
darkest  ages,  had  their  homes  within  this  new,  strong 
town-wall ;  in  fat  monasteries,  secluded  behind  garden 
and  vineyard ;  in  grim  citadels,  whose  central  keep 
and  lesser  towers  and  staircase  turrets,  stables  and 
outer  structures,  were  grouped  about  a  great  court, 
that  swarmed  with  men-at-arms,  grooms,  and  hangers- 
on.  And  so,  endless  walls  scowled  on  the  wayfarer 
through  the  town's  lanes,  narrow,  winding,  unpaved, 
filthy.  On  a  hot  summer  day,  Philippe-Auguste  stood 
at  his  open  window  in  the  old  Palace,  and  the  odor  of 
mud  came  offensively  to  the  royal  nostrils ;  soon  the 
main  City  streets  were  paved.  When  a  king's  son  hap- 
pened to  be  unhorsed  by  a  peripatetic  pig  nosing  for 
garbage,  a  royal  edict  forbade  the  presence  of  swine 
in  the  streets ;  the  only  exceptions  being  the  precious 
dozen  of  the  abbey  of  Petit-Saint-Antoine.  There  were 
no  side-paths,  and  they  who  went  afoot  were  pushed 
to  the  wall  and  splashed  with  mud,  by  the  mules  and 
palfreys  of  those  who  could  ride.  They  rode,  the  man 
in  front,  his  lady  behind,  en  croupe.  Open  trenches,  in 
the  middle  of  the  roadway,  served  for  drainage,  naked 
and  shameless ;  the  graveyards  were  unfenced  amid 
huddled  hovels  ;  and  the  constant  disease  and  frequent 
epidemics  that  came  from  all  this  foulness  were  fa- 
thered on  a  convenient  Providence !  This  solution  of 
the  illiterate  and  imbecile  could  not  be  accepted  by  the 


THREE    TIME-WORN  STAIRCASES  39 

shining  lights  of  science,  who  showed  that  the  plague  of 
the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century  came  from  malefi- 
cent comets,  their  tails  toward  the  Orient,  or  from 
malign  conjunctions  of  Mars,  Saturn,  and  Jupiter. 
Ambroise  Pare,  the  most  enlightened  man  of  his  day, 
had  the  courage  to  suggest  that  there  were  human 
and  natural  causes  at  work,  in  addition  to  the  divine 
will.  And  the  common-sense  Faculty  of  Medicine, 
toward  the  close  of  the  sixteenth  century,  indicted 
the  drains  and  cesspools  as  the  principal  origin  of  all 
maladies  then  prevalent. 

The  only  street-lighting  was  that  given  fitfully  by  the 
forlorn  lanterns  of  the  patrol,  or  by  the  torches  of 
varlets  escorting  their  masters,  on  foot  or  on  horse. 
Now  and  then,  a  hole  was  burned  in  the  mediaeval  night 
by  a  cresset  on  a  church  tower  or  porch,  or  shot  out 
from  a  cabaret's  fire  through  an  opened  door.  When 
tallow  candles  got  cheaper,  they  were  put  into  horn  lan- 
terns, and  swung,  at  wide  intervals,  high  above  the 
traffic.  There,  wind  or  rain  put  an  untimely  end  to  their 
infrequent  flicker,  or  a  "  thief  in  the  candle  "  guttered 
and  killed  it,  or  a  thief  in  the  street  stoned  it  dead,  for 
the  snug  plying  of  his  trade.  The  town,  none  too  safe  in 
daylight,  was  not  at  all  safe  by  night,  and  the  darkness 
was  long  and  dreary,  and  every  honest  man  and  woman 
went  to  bed  early  after  the  sunset  angelus.  Country 
roads  were  risky,  too,  and  those  who  were  unable  to 
travel  in  force,  or  in  the  train  of  a  noble,  travelled  not  at 
all ;  so  that  the  common  citizen  passed  his  entire  ex- 
istence within  the  confines  of  his  compact  parish.    Nor 


4o  THE   STONES    OF  PARIS 

could  he  see  much  of  his  Paris  or  of  his  Seine ;  he 
looked  along  the  streets  on  stone  walls  on  either  side, 
and  along  the  quays  at  timbered  buildings  on  the  banks. 
These  rose  sheer  from  the  river-brink,  and  from  both 
sides  of  every  bridge,  barring  all  outlook  from  the  road- 
way between ;  their  gables  gave  on  the  river,  and  from 
their  windows  could  be  seen  only  a  little  square  of 
water,  enclosed  between  the  buildings  on  both  banks 
and  on  the  neighboring  bridge.  So  that  the  wistful 
burgher  could  get  glimpses  of  his  river  only  from  the 
beach  by  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  or  from  the  occasional  ports 
crowded  with  boats  discharging  cargo. 

These  cargoes  were  sold  in  shops  on  ground  floors, 
and  the  tenants  were  thick  on  the  upper  floors,  of  dwell- 
ings mostly  made  of  timber  and  plaster,  their  high- 
fronted  gables  looking  on  the  street.  This  was  the  cus- 
tom in  all  towns  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  it  is  a  striking 
change  that  has,  in  our  day,  turned  all  buildings  so 
that  their  former  side  has  come  to  the  front.  The  old 
Paris  streets,  in  which  shops  and  houses  shouldered  to- 
gether compactly,  already  dark  and  narrow  enough, 
were  further  narrowed  and  darkened  by  projecting  up- 
per floors,  and  by  encroaching  shop-signs,  swinging, 
in  all  shapes  and  sizes,  from  over  the  doorways.  Each 
shop  sold  its  specialty,  and  the  wares  of  all  of  them 
slopped  over  on  the  roadway.  Their  owners  bawled 
the  merits  and  prices  of  these  wares  in  a  way  to  shock 
a  certain  irritable  Guillaume  de  Villeneuvc,  who  com- 
plains in  querulous  verse,  "  They  do  not  cease  to  bray 
from  morning  until  night."    With  all  its  growth  in  com- 


THREE    TIME-WORN  STAIRCASES  41 

ing  years,  the  city's  squalor  grew  apace  with  its  splen- 
dor, and  when  Voltaire's  Candide  came  in,  by  way  of 
Porte  Saint-Marcel  here  on  the  southern  side,  in  the 
time  of  Louis  XV.,  he  imagined  himself  in  the  dirtiest 
and  ugliest  of  Westphalian  villages.  For  all  its  filth  and 
all  its  discomfort,  this  mediaeval  Paris — portrayed,  as 
it  appeared  three  hundred  years  later,  in  the  painful 
detail  and  inaccurate  erudition  of  Hugo's  "  Notre- 
Dame  de  Paris  " — was  a  picturesque  town,  its  build- 
ings giving  those  varied  and  unexpected  groupings 
that  make  an  architectural  picture ;  their  roofs  were 
tiled  in  many  colors,  their  sky-lines  were  wanton  in 
their  irregularity,  and  were  punctuated  by  pointed 
turrets  and  by  cone-shaped  tower-tops ;  and  over 
beyond  the  tall  town  walls,  broken  by  battlements  and 
sentry-boxes,  whirled  a  grotesque  coronet  of  windmill 
sails. 

Turning  from  this  attractive  "  Maison  de  la  Rcine 
Blanche,"  from  this  quarter  where  her  son  Louis  learned 
to  ride  and  to  tilt,  and  glancing  behind  at  the  famous 
tapestry  works,  the  Gobelins,  of  whose  founder  and 
director  we  shall  have  a  word  to  say  later,  we  follow 
the  avenue  of  that  name  to  Rue  du  Fer-a-Moulin.  This 
little  street,  named  for  a  sign  that  swung  there  in  the 
twelfth  century,  is  most  commonplace  until  it  opens  out 
into  a  small,  shabby  square,  that  holds  a  few  discour- 
aged trees,  and  is  faced  by  a  stolid  building  whose 
wide,  low-browed  archway  gives  access  to  the  court  of 
the  Boulangcrie  generate  des  Hopitaux  et  Hospices. 
This  was  the  courtyard  of  the  villa  of  Scipio  Sardini, 


42  THE   STONES   OF  PARIS 

whose  name  alone  is  kept  alive  by  this  Place  Scipion — 
all  that  is  left  of  his  gardens  and  vineyards.  Yet  his 
was  a  notable  name,  in  the  days  when  this  wily  Tuscan 
was  "  ccityer  du  Roi  Henri  II."  and  in  those  roaring 
days  of  swift  fortunes  for  sharp  Italian  financiers, 
under  the  queen-mother,  Catherine  de'  Medici.  This 
man  amassed  scandalous  riches,  and  built  his  villa,  men- 
tioned by  Sauval  as  one  of  the  richest  of  that  time,  here 
amid  the  country  mansions  that  dotted  this  southern 
declivity.  Of  this  villa  only  one  wing  still  stands,  and 
it  is  with  unlooked-for  delight  that  we  find  this  admir- 
able specimen  of  sixteenth-century  architecture,  of  a 
style  distinct  from  that  of  any  other  specimen  in  Paris. 
The  facade,  that  is  left  in  the  court  of  the  Bonlangerie, 
is  made  up  of  an  arcade  of  six  semi-circular  arches  on 
heavy  stone  pillars,  a  story  above  of  plum-colored  brick 
cut  into  panels  by  gray  stone,  its  square-headed  win- 
dows encased  with  the  same  squared  stone,  and  an 
attic  holding  two  dormers  with  pointed  hoods.  Set  in 
the  broad  band  between  the  two  lower  floors,  were  six 
medallions,  one  over  the  centre  of  each  arch ;  of  these 
six,  only  four  remain.  These  contain  the  heads  of  war- 
riors and  of  women,  boldly  or  delicately  carved,  and 
wonderfully  preserved ;  yet  time  has  eaten  away  the 
terra-cotta,  wind  and  wet  have  dulled  the  enamel  that 
brightened  them.  The  buildings  about  this  court  and 
behind  this  unique  faqade  are  commonplace  and  need 
not  detain  us.  It  was  in  1614  that  the  General  Hospital 
took  the  villa  and  enlarged  it;  in  1636,  to  escape  the 
plague,  the  prisoners  of  the  Conciergerie  were  installed 


THREE    TIME-WORN  STAIRCASES  43 

here ;  and  it  has  served  as  the  bakery  for  the  civil  hos- 
pitals of  Paris  for  many  years. 

We  go  our  way  toward  our  third  staircase,  not  by  the 
stupidly  straight  line  of  Rue  Monge,  but  by  vagrant 
curves  that  bring  us  to  the  prison  of  Sainte-Pelagie, 
soon  to  disappear,  and  to  the  Roman  amphitheatre  just 
below,  happily  rescued  forever.  Here,  in  Rue  Car- 
dinal-Lemoine,  we  slip  under  the  stupid  frontage  of 
No.  49  to  the  court  within,  where  we  are  faced  by  the 
hotel  of  Charles  Lebrun.  We  mount  the  stone  steps 
that  lead  up  to  a  wide  hall,  and  so  go  through  to  a  far- 
ther court,  now  unfortunately  roofed  over.  This  court 
was  his  garden,  and  this  is  the  stately  garden-front  that 
was  the  true  facade,  rather  than  that  toward  the  street ; 
for  this  noble  mansion — the  work  of  the  architect  Ger- 
main Boffrand,  pupil  and  friend  of  Hardouin  Mansart 
— was  built  after  the  fashion  of  that  time,  which  shut 
out,  by  high  walls,  all  that  was  within  from  sight  of 
the  man  in  the  street,  and  kept  the  best  for  those  who 
had  entry  to  the  stiff,  formal  gardens  of  that  day. 

Pupil  of  Poussin,  protege  of  Fouquet,  friend  of  Col- 
bert, Lebrun  was  the  favorite  court  painter  and  decora- 
tor, and  the  most  characteristic  exponent  of  the  art  of 
his  day;  his  sumptuous  style  suiting  equally  Francois 
I.'s  Fontainebleau,  and  Louis  XIV.'s  Versailles.  He 
aided  Colbert  in  the  founding  of  the  Royal  Academy  of 
Painting  and  Sculpture,  and  in  the  purchase  by  the 
State  of  the  Gobelins.  This  factory  took  its  name  from 
the  famous  dyer  who  came  from  Rheims,  and  tinted  the 
clear  Bievre  with  his  splendid  scarlet,  says  Rabelais; 


44  THE   STONES   OF  PARIS 

so  that  it  took  the  name  of  la  Riviere  des  Gobelins,  of 
which  Ronsard  sings.  The  statesman  and  the  artist 
in  concert  built  up  the  great  factory  of  tapestries  and 
of  furniture,  such  as  were  suitable  for  royal  use.  Made 
Director  of  the  Gobelins  and  Chancellor  of  the  Acad- 
emy, and  making  himself  the  approved  painter  of  the 
time  to  his  fellow-painters  and  to  the  buying  public, 
Lebrun's  fortune  grew  to  the  possession  of  this  costly 
estate,  which  extended  far  away  beyond  modern  Rue 
Monge.  The  death  of  Colbert — whose  superb  tomb  in 
Saint-Eustache  is  the  work  of  his  surviving  friend — 
left  him  to  the  hatred  of  Louvois,  who  pushed  Mignard, 
Moliere's  friend,  into  preferment.  And  Lebrun,  genu- 
ine and  honest  artist,  died  of  sheer  despondency,  in  his 
official  apartment  on  the  first  floor  of  the  factory,  facing 
the  chapel.  His  rooms  have  been  cut  up  and  given  over 
to  various  usages,  and  no  trace  can  be  found  in  the 
Gobelins  of  its  first  director. 

His  body  rests  in  his  parish  church,  a  few  steps 
farther  on,  through  ancient  Rue  Saint-Victor,  now 
curtailed  and  mutilated.  Along  its  line,  before  we 
come  to  the  square  tower  of  Saint-Nicolas-du-Char- 
donnet,  we  skirt  the  dirty  yellow  and  drab  wall  of  the 
famous  seminary  alongside  the  church,  and  bearing  its 
name.  Its  entrance  is  at  No.  30  Rue  de  Pontoise,  and 
among  the  many  famous  pupils  who  have  gone  in  and 
out  since  Calvin  was  a  student  here,  we  may  mention 
only  Ernest  Renan.  In  1838,  the  director  of  the  school 
bring  the  accomplished  Dupanloup,  this  boy  of  fifteen 
came  fresh  from  Brittany  to  his  studies  here.    We  shall 


THREE    TIME-WORN  STAIRCASES  45 

follow  him  to  his  later  and  larger  schools,  in  other  pages. 
When  Jean  "  le  Moine,"  the  son  of  a  Picardy  peasant, 
came  to  sit  in  a  cardinal's  chair,  and  was  sent  to  Paris 
as  legate  by  Pope  Boniface  VIII.,  he  established  a  great 
college  in  the  year  1303.  For  it  he  bought  the  chapel, 
the  dwellings,  and  the  cemetery  of  the  Augustins  that 
were  all  in  fields  of  thistles.  So  came  the  name  "  du 
Chardonnet "  to  the  church  now  built  on  the  ruins  of 
Lemoine's  chapel,  in  the  later  years  of  the  seventeenth 
century.  Lebrun  decorated  one  of  its  chapels  for  the 
burial  of  his  mother,  and  his  own  tomb  is  there  near 
hers.  Some  of  his  work  still  shows  on  the  ceiling; 
and  in  an  adjacent  chapel,  in  odd  proximity,  once  hung 
a  canvas  from  the  brush  of  Mignard.  In  striking  con- 
trast, the  busts  of  the  two  men  face  each  other  in  the 
Louvre ;  that  of  Mignard  is  alert  with  intelligence  in 
face  and  poise  of  head,  while  Lebrun's  suggests  a  some- 
what slow-witted  earnestness. 

From  this  short  stay  in  the  realm  of  Louis  the  Un- 
real, we  go  to  the  island  that  bears  the  name  of  the 
Louis  who  was  called  a  saint,  but  who  was  a  very  real 
man.  All  the  streets  along  here  that  take  us  to  the 
river,  as  far  easterly  as  the  one  that  bears  the  name  of 
Cardinal  Lemoine,  were  cut  through  the  grounds  of  his 
college  and  of  the  Bernadins,  an  ancient  foundation 
alongside.  Of  the  buildings  of  this  vast  monastery,  the 
refectory  remains,  behind  the  wall  on  the  western  side 
of  Rue  de  Poissy.  This  characteristic  specimen  of 
thirteenth-century  architecture,  but  little  spoiled  by 
modern  additions,  is  used  for  the  caserne  of  the  Sa- 


46  THE   STONES    OF  PARIS 

peurs-Pompiers.  Here,  at  the  foot  of  the  street  on  the 
river-bank  on  our  right,  is  the  great  space  where  Boule- 
vard Saint-Germain  comes  down  to  the  quay,  and  where 
the  old  wall  came  down  to  its  great  tower  on  the  shore. 
On  our  left,  as  we  cross  broad  Pont  de  la  Tournelle,  we 
get  an  impressive  view  of  Notre-Dame.  And  now  we 
find  ourselves  in  a  provincial  town,  seemingly  far  re- 
moved from  our  Paris  in  miles  and  in  years,  by  its  iso- 
lation and  tranquillity  and  old-world  atmosphere.  Its 
long,  lazy  main  street  is  named  after  the  royal  saint, 
and  its  quays  keep  the  titles  of  royal  princes,  Bourbon, 
Orleans,  Anjou.  A  great  royal  minister,  Maximilien 
de  Bethune,  gives  his  name  to  another  quay,  and  his 
great  master  gives  his  to  the  new  boulevard  crossing  it. 
Henry  often  crossed  his  faithful  Sully,  but  they  were  at 
one  in  the  orders  issued,  in  the  year  before  the  King's 
murder,  for  the  sweeping  away  of  the  woodyards,  that 
made  this  island  the  storehouse  of  the  town's  timber, 
and  for  the  construction  of  these  streets  and  buildings. 
The  works  planned  by  Henri  IV.  were  carried  out  by 
Marie  de'  Medici  and  Louis  XIII.  A  concession  was 
given  for  the  laying  out  of  streets  and  for  the  buildings 
on  this  island,  and  for  the  construction  of  a  new  stone 
bridge  to  the  Marais,  to  the  three  associates,  Marie,  Le 
Regrettier,  Poultier,  who  gave  their  names  to  the  bridge 
and  to  two  of  the  streets.  There  was  already  a  small 
chapel  in  the  centre,  the  scene  of  the  first  preaching  of 
the  First  Crusade,  and  this  chapel  has  been  enlarged 
to  the  present  old-time  parish  church.  Just  within  its 
entrance   is   the   benitier,   filled   with   water   from   the 


THREE    TIME-WORN  STAIRCASES 


47 


mouth  of  a  marble  cherub  who  wears  a  pretty  marble 
"  bang."  It  came  from  the  Carmelites  of  Chaillot,  in 
souvenir  of  "  Sister  Louise." 

The  sites  on  the  island's  banks,  newly  opened  in  the 
early  years  of  Louis  XIII. 's  reign,  were  in  demand  at 
once  for  the  mansions  of  the  wealthy,  and  a  precocious 
city  started  up.  Corneille's  Menteur,  new  to  Paris  and 
the  island,  rhapsodizes  in  one  of  his  captivating  flights, 
this  time  without  lying : 

"fy  c^oyais  ce  matin  voir  une  ile  enchantJe, 
Je  la  laissai'  deserte  et  la  trouve  habitee  j 
Quelque  Amphion  nouvean,  sans  Vaide  des  ma(ons, 
En  superbes  palais  a  changd  ses  buissons." 


We  shall  come  hither  again,  in  company  with  Vol- 
taire to  one  of  these  palaces,  with  Balzac  to  another. 
In  these  high  old  houses  in  these  old  streets  dwelt  old 
families,  served  by  old  retain- 
ers devoted  to  their  mistresses, 
who  hugged  their  firesides  like 
contented    tabby-cats.      They 
had  no  welcome  for  intruders 
into  their  "  Ville-Saint-Louis" 
from  the  swell  quarters  on  the 
other  side  of  the  river,  and  it 
used  to  be  said  that  "V habitant 
du  Marais  est  Stranger  dans 
Vile." 

Pont  Louis  -  Philippe  —  an 
absurdly   modern    issue    from 


Balcony  of  H6tel  de  Lauzan. 
Pimodan  on  lie  de  Saint- 
Louis. 


48  THE   STONES    OF  PARIS 

this  ancient  quarter — carries  us  to  the  quay  of  the 
Hotel  de  Ville,  and  we  may  turn  to  look  in  at  Saint- 
Gervais,  its  precious  window  as  brilliant  as  on  the  day 
it  was  finished  by  Jean  Cousin.  Passing  in  front  of 
the  imperious  statue  of  Etienne  Marcel,  staring  at  the 
river  that  was  his  grave,  we  cross  Place  de  l'H6tel-de- 
Ville,  once  Place  de  Greve,  when  it  had  in  the  centre 
its  stone  cross  reached  by  high  steps,  and  its  busy  gal- 
lows close  at  hand.  We  forget  its  horrid  memories  in 
the  sight  of  the  new  Hotel  de  Ville,  of  no  memories, 
good  or  bad,  to  dash  our  delight  in  this  most  nearly 
perfect  of  modern  structures ;  perfect  in  design,  exe- 
cution, and  material,  a  consummate  scheme  carried  out 
to  the  last  exquisite  detail  by  architects,  sculptors,  and 
decorators,  all  masters  of  their  crafts. 

Our  direct  road  takes  us  through  the  Halles,  their 
huge  iron  and  glass  structures  the  lineal  descendants 
of  those  heavy  stone  Halles,  started  in  the  twelfth 
century  here  in  the  fields,  when  the  small  market  on  the 
island  no  longer  sufficed.  Their  square,  dumpy  pillars, 
and  those  on  which  the  houses  all  about  were  once  sup- 
ported, survive  only  in  the  few  left  from  the  seven- 
teenth-century  rebuilding,  now  on  the  north  side  of  Rue 
de  la  Ferroncrie.  Standing  in  that  arcade,  we  look  out 
on  the  spot  where  Ravaillac  waited  for  the  coming  of 
Henri  IV.  The  wretched  fanatic,  worked  on  by  whom 
we  shall  never  know,  had  found  Paris  crowded  for  the 
Queen's  coronation,  and  had  hunted  up  a  room  in  the 
"Three  Pigeons,"  an  inn  of  Rue  Saint-Honore,  op- 
posite the  Church  of  Saint-Roch.     Here  or  in  another 


THREE    TIME-WORN  STAIRCASES  49 

tavern,  while  prowling,  he  stole  the  knife.  The  narrow 
street  was  widened  a  little  by  Richelieu,  and  few  of  its 
ancient  buildings  are  left.  Returning  through  this 
arcade,  once  the  entrance  to  the  Cemetery  of  the  Inno- 
cents, to  Rue  des  Innocents  just  behind,  you  will  find 
many  of  the  old  charniers  absolutely  unchanged.  They 
form  the  low-ceilinged  ground  floor  of  nearly  all  these 
buildings  between  Rue  Saint-Denis  and  Rue  de  la  Lin- 
gerie. Perhaps  the  most  characteristic  specimen  is 
that  one  used  for  a  remise  de  voitures  a  bras,  a  phrase 
of  the  finest  French  for  a  push-cart  shed !  And  under 
No.  15  of  this  street  of  the  Innocents,  you  may  explore 
two  of  the  cemetery  vaults  in  perfect  preservation. 
They  are  come  to  less  lugubrious  usage  now,  and  serve 
as  a  club-room  for  the  teamsters  who  bring  supplies  to 
the  markets  over-night,  and  for  the  market  attendants 
who  wait  for  them.  Their  wagons  unloaded,  here 
they  pass  the  night  until  daylight  shall  bring  customers, 
drinking  and  singing  after  their  harmless  fashion,  hap- 
pily ignorant  or  careless  of  the  once  grisly  service  of 
these  caves.  The  attendants  in  the  cabaret  on  the  en- 
trance floor,  tired  as  they  are  by  day,  will  courteously 
show  the  cellars,  one  beneath  the  other.  One  must 
stoop  to  pass  under  the  heavily  vaulted  low  arches,  and 
the  small  chambers  are  overcrowded  with  a  cottage 
piano  and  with  rough  benches  and  tables ;  these  latter 
cut,  beyond  even  the  unhallowed  industry  of  schoolboys, 
with  initials  and  names  of  the  frequenters  of  the  club, 
who  have  scarred  the  walls  in  the  same  vigorous  style. 

The  demure  dame  du  comptoir  above  assures  you  that 
Vol.  I.— 4 


50  THE   STONES   OF  PARIS 

you  will  be  welcomed  between  midnight  and  dawn,  but 
bids  you  bring  no  prejudices  along,  for  the  guests  are 
not  apt,  in  their  song  and  chatter,  to  "  chercher  la 
dclicatcsse  " ! 

The  Church  of  the  Innocents,  built  by  Louis  "  le 
Gros  "  early  in  the  twelfth  century,  had  on  its  corner  at 
Rues  Saint-Denis  and  aux  Fers — this  latter  now  wi- 
dened into  Rue  Berger — a  most  ancient  fountain,  dat- 
ing from  1273.  This  fountain  was  built  anew  in  1550, 
from  a  design  of  the  Abbe  de  Clagny,  not  of  Pierre 
Lescot  as  is  claimed,  and  was  decorated  by  Jean  Goujon. 
Just  before  the  Revolution  (1785-88),  when  church  and 
charnel-houses  and  cemetery  were  swept  away,  this 
fountain  was  removed  to  the  centre  of  the  markets — the 
centre,  too,  of  the  old  cemetery — and  has  been  placed, 
since  then,  in  the  middle  of  this  dainty  little  square 
which  greets  us  as  we  emerge  from  our  cabaret.  To  the 
three  arches  it  owned,  when  backed  by  the  church  cor- 
ner, a  fourth  has  been  added  to  make  a  square,  and  the 
original  Naiads  of  Goujon  have  been  increased  in  num- 
ber. Their  fine  flowing  lines  lift  up  and  lend  distinc- 
tion to  this  best  bit  of  Renaissance  remaining  in  Paris. 
And  here  we  are  struck  by  the  ingenuity  shown  by 
making  the  water  in  motion  a  signal  feature  of  the 
decoration — another  instance  of  this  engaging  charac- 
teristic of  French  fountains. 

A  few  steps  farther  north  take  us  to  Rue  Etienne 
Marcel,  cutting  its  ruthless  course  through  all  that 
should  be  sacred,  in  a  fashion  that  would  gladden  the 
sturdy  provost.     For  all  its  destructive  instincts,  it  yet 


THREE    TIME-WORN  STAIRCASES  51 

has  spared  to  us  this  memorable  bit  of  petrified  history, 
the  tower  of  "  Jcan-sans-Pcur."  At  No.  20,  on  the 
northern  side  of  this  broad  and  noisy  street,  amid  mod- 
ern structures,  its  base  below  the  level  of  the  pavement, 
stands  the  last  remaining  fragment  of  the  Hotel  de 
Bourgogne ;  which,  under  its  earlier  name  in  older  an- 
nals as  the  Hotel  d'Artois,  carries  us  back  again  to  the 
thirteenth  century,  for  this  was  the  palace- fortress  built 
by  the  younger  brother  of  Saint  Louis,  Robert,  Count 
of  Artois.  He  it  was  who  fell,  in  his  "  senseless  ardor," 
on  the  disastrous  field  of  Massouah,  in  1250;  when 
the  pious  King  and  his  devoted  captains  were  made 
captive  by  the  Sultan  of  Egypt,  and  released  with 
heavy  fines,  so  ending  that  Sixth  Crusade. 

The  Hotel  d'Artois  was  a  princely  domain,  reaching 
southward  from  the  wall  of  Philippe-Auguste  to  Rue 
Mauconseil,  a  road  much  longer  then,  and  extending 
from  present  Rue  Saint-Denis  to  Rue  Montorgueil,  the 
two  streets  that  bounded  the  property  east  and  west. 
Some  of  its  structures  backed  against  the  wall,  some  of 
them  rested  upon  its  broken  top.  For  the  grounds  and 
gardens  enclosed  within  this  northern  enceinte — com- 
pleted between  11 90  and  1208 — stretched  to  its  base, 
leaving  no  room  for  a  road  on  its  inner  side.  Because 
of  this  plan,  and  because  this  wall  crumbled  gradually, 
its  broken  sections  being  surrounded  and  surmounted 
by  crowding  houses,  no  broad  boulevards  were  laid  out 
over  its  line — as  was  done  with  its  immediate  succes- 
sor, the  wall  of  Charles  V. — and  it  is  not  easy  to  trace 
it  through  modern  streets  and  under  modern  structures. 


52  THE   STONES   OF  PARIS 

The  only  fragment  left  is  the  tower  in  the  court  of  the 
Mont-de-Piete,  entered  from  Rue  des  Francs-Bour- 
geois, and  it  is  of  build  less  solid  than  those  we  have 
seen  on  the  southern  bank.  In  the  pavement  of  the  first 
court  is  traced  the  line  of  the  wall  up  to  this  tower. 
With  this  exception,  we  can  indicate  only  the  sites  of 
the  towers  and  the  course  of  the  wall. 

The  huge  Tour  Barbeau  was  at  the  easternmost 
river  end,  on  Quai  des  Celestins,  nearly  at  the  foot  of 
our  Rue  des  Jardins-Saint-Paul.  It  commanded  Port 
Saint-Paul,  chief  landing-place  of  river  boatmen,  and 
guarded  the  Poterne  des  Barres.  That  name  was  also 
given  to  the  small  street — now  Rue  de  l'Ave  Maria — 
that  led  from  this  postern-gate.  They  owe  that  name 
indirectly  to  Saint  Louis.  Returning  from  the  Holy 
Land,  he  had  brought  six  monks  from  Mount  Carmel, 
and  housed  them  on  the  quay,  called  now  after  their 
successors,  the  Celestins.  The  black  robes,  striped 
white,  of  these  six  monks,  made  them  known  popularly 
as  "  les  Barres."  Our  wall  ran  straight  away  from 
this  waterside  gate,  parallel  with  and  a  little  to  the  west 
of  present  Rue  des  Jardins,  then  a  country  road  on  its 
outer  edge,  to  Porte  Baudoyer,  afterward  Porte  Saint- 
Antoinc,  standing  across  the  space  where  meet  Rues 
Saint-Antoine  and  de  Rivoli.  This  was  the  strongest 
for  defence  of  all  the  gates,  holding  the  entrance  to 
the  town,  by  way  of  the  Roman  and  later  the  Royal 
road  from  the  eastern  provinces.  From  this  point  the 
wall  took  a  great  curve  beyond  the  bounds  of  the 
built-up  portions  of  the  town.    The  Poterne  Barbette, 


THREE    TIME-WORM  STAIRCASES  53 

its  next  gate,  in  Rue  Vieille-du-Temple,  just  south  of 
its  crossing  by  Rue  des  Francs-Bourgeois,  lost  its  old 
name  in  this  name  taken  from  the  Hotel  Barbette, 
built  a  century  later,  outside  the  wall  here.  Next 
came  the  gate  in  Rue  du  Temple,  nearly  half  way  be- 
tween our  Rues  de  Braque  and  Rambuteau.  Through 
this  gate  passed  the  Knights  Templar  to  and  from 
their  great  fortified  domain  beyond.  The  Poterne 
Beaubourg,  in  the  street  of  that  name,  was  a  minor 
gateway,  having  no  especial  history  beyond  that  con- 
tained in  the  derivation  of  its  name,  "  beaubourg," 
from  a  particularly  rich  settlement,  just  hereabout. 
Next  we  come  to  two  most  important  gates,  Saint- 
Martin  and  Saint-Denis,  across  those  two  streets,  that 
guarded  the  approaches  by  the  great  roads  from  Sen- 
lis  and  Soissons,  and  the  heart  of  the  land,  old  lie 
de  France,  and  from  all  the  northern  provinces.  Be- 
tween the  Saint-Denis  gate  and  that  at  Rue  Montor- 
gueil,  lay  the  property  of  the  Comte  d'Artois,  and  he 
cut,  for  his  royal  convenience,  a  postern  in  the  wall  that 
formed  his  northern  boundary. 

From  this  point  our  wall  went  in  another  wide  curve 
to  the  river-bank,  within  the  lines  of  old  Rues  Platriere 
and  Grenelle,  the  two  now  widened  into  modern  Rue 
Jean- Jacques-Rousseau.  The  country  road  that  is  now 
Rue  Montmartre  was  guarded  by  a  gate,  opened  a 
few  years  after  the  completion  of  the  wall,  and  its  site 
shown  by  a  tablet  in  the  wall  of  No.  30  of  that  street. 
A  small  gate  was  cut  at  the  meeting  of  present  Rues 
Coquillierc  and  Jean-Jacques-Rousseau.     Nearly  op- 


54  THE   STONES    OF  PARIS 

posite  the  end  of  this  latter  street,  where  Rue  Saint- 
Honore  passes  in  front  of  the  Oratoire,  was  the  last 
public  gate  on  the  mainland.  Thence  the  course  was 
straight  away  to  the  river  shore,  as  you  may  see  by 
the  diagram  set  in  lighter  stone  in  the  pavement  of 
the  court  of  the  Louvre.  These  stones  mark  also  the 
huge  round  of  the  donjon  of  the  old  Louvre,  on  whose 
eastern  or  town  side  the  wall  passed  to  the  river-side 
Tour-qui-fait-le-Coin.  This  tower  was  of  the  shape 
and  size  of  the  opposite  Tour  de  Nesle,  which  we  have 
already  seen  at  the  point  where  the  southern  wall  came 
down  to  the  shore;  and  between  the  two  towers,  a 
great  chain  was  slung  across  the  Seine  to  prevent  ap- 
proach by  river  pirates.  Pont  des  Arts  is  almost  di- 
rectly over  the  dip  of  that  chain.  So,  too,  the  river 
was  protected  at  the  eastern  ends  of  the  wall ;  the 
Barbeau  tower  was  linked  to  the  solitary  tower  on  He 
Notre-Dame,  and  that  again  across  the  other  arm  of 
the  Seine,  to  the  immense  tower  on  Quai  de  la  Tour- 
nelle.  This  island  Tour  Loriaux  rose  from  the  banks 
of  a  natural  moat  made  by  the  river's  narrow  channel 
between  He  Notre-Dame  and  lie  aux  Vaches,  and  this 
bank  was  afterward  further  protected  by  a  slight  cur- 
tain of  wall  across  the  island,  with  a  tower  at  either 
end.  Four  centuries  later,  when  this  island  wall  and 
its  towers  had  long  since  crumbled  away,  that  moat 
was  filled  up — Rue  Poulletier,  the  modernized  Poul- 
tier,  lies  over  its  course — and  the  two  small  islands 
became  large  lie  Saint-Louis. 

And  now,  we  have  seen  la  Cite,  la  Ville,  VUnivcrsitc, 


THREE    TIME-WORN  STAIRCASES  55 

all  girdled  about  by  Philippe-Auguste's  great  wall. 
The  City  could  spread  no  farther  than  its  river-banks ; 
the  University  was  content,  to  abide  within  its  bounds, 
even  as  late  as  the  wars  of  the  League;  the  Town 
began  speedily  to  outgrow  its  limits,  and  within  two 
centuries  it  had  so  developed  that  the  capacious  range 
of  a  new  wall,  that  of  Charles  V.,  was  needed  to  en- 
close its  bustling  quarters.  That  story  shall  come  in 
a  later  chapter. 

One  hundred  years  after  the  death  of  Robert  of  Ar- 
tois,  his  estate  passed,  by  marriage,  to  the  first  house 
of  Burgundy,  whose  name  it  took,  and  when  that 
house  became  extinct,  in  the  days  of  Jean  "  le  Bon," 
second  Valois  King  of  France,  it  came,  along  with  the 
broad  acres  and  opulent  towns  of  that  duchy,  into  his 
hands,  by  way  of  some  distant  kinship.  This  generous 
and  not  over-shrewd  monarch  did  not  care  to  retain 
these  much-needed  revenues,  and  gave  them,  with  the 
resuscitated  title  of  Burgundy,  to  his  younger  son, 
"  recalling  again  to  memory  the  excellent  and  praise- 
worthy services  of  our  right  dearly  beloved  son  Philip, 
the  fourth  of  our  sons,  who  freely  exposed  himself  to 
death  with  us,  and,  all  wounded  as  he  was,  remained 
unwavering  and  fearless  at  the  battle  of  Poicticrs." 
From  that  field  Philip  carried  away  his  future  title,  "  le 
Hardi."  By  this  act  of  grateful  recognition,  rare  in 
kings,  were  laid  the  foundations  of  a  house  that  was 
to  grow  as  great  as  the  throne  itself,  to  perplex  France 
within,  and  to  bring  trouble  from  without,  throughout 
long  calamitous  years.     This  first  Duke  Philip  seems 


56  THE   STONES    OF  PARIS 

to  have  had  the  hardihood  to  do  right  in  those  wrong- 
doing days,  for  he  remained  a  sufficiently  loyal  subject 
of  his  brother  Charles  V.,  and  later  a  faithful  guardian, 
as  one  of  the  "  Sires  dc  la  Flcur-dc-Lis,"  of  his  nephew, 
the  eleven-year-old  Charles  VI.  He  married  Mar- 
garet, heiress  of  the  Count  of  Flanders,  and  widow  of 
Philippe  de  Rouvre,  last  of  the  old  line  of  Burgundy, 
and  she  brought,  to  this  new  house  of  Burgundy,  the 
fat,  flat  meadows  and  the  turbulent  towns  of  the  Low- 
lands, and  also  the  Hotel  de  Flandres  in  the  capital, 
where  now  stands  the  General  Post-office  in  Rue  Jean- 
Jacques-Rousseau. 

Duke  Philip,  dying  in  1404,  bequeathed  to  his  eldest 
son,  John,  nick-named  "  J ean-sans-P eur ,"  not  only  a 
goodly  share  of  his  immense  possessions,  but  also  the 
pickings  of  a  "  very  pretty  quarrel  "  with  Louis  de 
Valois,  Due  d'Orleans.  This  quarrel  was  tenderly 
nursed  by  John,  who,  as  the  head  of  a  powerful  inde- 
pendent house,  and  the  leader  of  a  redoubtable  fac- 
tion, felt  himself  to  be  more  important  than  the  royal 
younger  brother.  Ambitious  and  unscrupulous,  cal- 
culating and  impetuous,  he  created  the  role  on  his 
stage,  played  with  transient  success  by  Philippe-Egal- 
ite,  four  hundred  years  later.  He  rode  at  the  head 
of  a  brilliant  train  and  posed  for  the  applause  of  the 
populace.  He  walked  arm  in  arm  with  the  public  exe- 
cutioner, Capeluche,  and  when  done  with  him,  handed 
him  over  to  the  gallows.  Finding  himself  grown  so 
great,  he  schemed  for  sole  control  of  the  State.  The 
one  man  in  his  way  was  Louis  of  Orleans,  the  mad 


"  lean-sans-Peur,"  Due  de  Bourgogne. 

(I  rom  .1  painting  bj   an  unknown  artist,  at  I  hantilly.) 


THREE    TIME-WORM  STAIRCASES  57 

king's  only  brother,  the  lover  of  the  queen,  and  her 
accomplice  in  plundering  and  wasting  the  country's 
revenues.  He  was  handsome  and  elegant,  open  in 
speech  and  open  of  hand,  bewitching  all  men  and 
women  whom  he  cared  to  win.  "  Qui  veult,  pent,"  was 
his  braggart  device,  loud  on  the  walls  of  the  rooms 
of  Viollet-le-Duc's  reconstructed  Pierrefonds,  whose 
original  was  built  by  Louis.  In  its  court  you  may  see 
the  man  himself  in  Fremiet's  superb  bronze,  erect  and 
alert  on  his  horse.  The  horse's  hoofs  trample  the 
flowers,  as  his  rider  trod  down  all  sweet  decencies  in 
his  stride  through  life.  He  was  an  insolent  profligate, 
quick  to  tell  when  he  had  kissed.  In  his  long  gallery 
of  portraits  of  the  women  who,  his  swagger  suggested, 
had  yielded  to  his  allurements,  he  hung,  with  unseemly 
taste,  those  of  his  lovely  Italian  wife,  Valentine  Vis- 
conti,  and  of  the  Duchess  of  Burgundy,  his  cousin's 
wife ;  both  of  them  honest  women.  For  this  boast, 
John  hated  him ;  he  hated  him,  as  did  his  other  unlet- 
tered compeers,  for  his  learning  and  eloquence  and 
patronage  of  poetry  and  the  arts ;  he  hated  him  as  did 
the  common  people,  who  prayed  "  Jesus  Christ  in 
Heaven,  send  Thou  someone  to  deliver  us  from  Or- 
leans." 

At  last  "  ] can-sans-P cur  "  mustered  his  courage  and 
his  assassins  to  deliver  himself  and  France.  Isabelle 
of  Bavaria  had  left  her  crazed  husband  in  desolate 
Hotel  Saint-Paul,  and  carried  her  unclean  court  to 
Hotel  Barbette — we  shall  see  more  of  these  residences 
in  another  chapter — where  she  sat  at  supper,  with  her 


53  THE   STONES   OF  PARIS 

husband's  brother,  on  the  night  of  November  23,  1407. 
It  was  eight  in  the  evening,  dark  for  the  short  days 
of  that  "  black  winter,"  the  bitterest  known  in  France 
for  centuries.  An  urgent  messenger,  shown  in  to  Or- 
leans at  table,  begged  him  to  hasten  to  the  King  at 
Saint-Paul.  The  duke  sauntered  out,  humming  an 
air,  mounted  his  mule  and  started  on  his  way,  still 
musical ;  four  varlets  with  torches  ahead,  two  'squires 
behind.  Only  a  few  steps  on,  as  he  passed  the  shad- 
owed entrance  of  a  court,  armed  men — many  more 
than  his  escort — sprang  upon  him  and  cut  him  down 
with  axes.  He  called  out  that  he  was  the  Duke  of 
Orleans.  "  So  much  the  better !  "  they  shouted,  and 
battered  him  to  death  on  the  ground ;  then  they  rode 
off  through  the  night,  unmolested  by  the  terrified  at- 
tendants. The  master  and  paymaster  of  the  gang,  who 
was  watching,  from  a  doorway  hard  by,  to  see  that  his 
money  was  honestly  earned,  went  off  on  his  way.  A 
devious  way  it  turned  out  to  be,  for,  having  admitted 
his  complicity  to  the  Council,  in  his  high  and  mighty 
fashion,  he  found  himself  safer  in  flight  than  in  his 
guarded  topmost  room  of  this  tower  before  us.  He 
galloped  away  to  his  frontier  of  Flanders,  cutting  each 
bridge  that  he  crossed.  It  was  ten  years  before  he 
could  return,  and  then  he  came  at  the  head  of  his  Bur- 
gundian  forces,  and  bought  the  keys  of  Porte  de  Buci, 
stolen  by  its  keeper's  son  from  under  his  father's  pil- 
low. Entering  Paris  on  the  night  of  Saturday,  May 
28,  14 1 8,  on  the  following  day,  the  Burgundians  be- 
gan those  massacres  which  lasted  as  long  as  there  were 


THREE    TIME-WORM  STAIRCASES  sg 

Armagnacs  to  kill,  and  which  polluted  Paris  streets 
with  corpses.  Within  a  year,  John,  lured  to  a  meet- 
ing with  the  Dauphin,  afterward  Charles  VII.,  went 
to  the  bridge  at  Montereau,  with  the  infinite  precautions 
always  taken  by  this  fearless  man,  and  there  he  was 
murdered  with  no  less  treachery,  if  with  less  butchery, 
than  he  gave  to  his  killing  of  Louis  of  Orleans. 

Valentine  Visconti,  widow  of  Orleans,  had  not  lived 
to  see  this  retribution.  Her  appeal  to  the  King  for  the 
punishment  of  the  assassin  was  answered  by  pleasant 
phrases,  and  soon  after,  in  one  of  his  sane  intervals, 
was  further  answered  by  the  royal  pardon  to  Bur- 
gundy, for  that  "  out  of  faith  and  loyalty  to  us,  he  has 
caused  to  be  put  out  of  the  world  our  brother  of  Or- 
leans." She  had  counted  on  the  King's  remembering 
that,  in  the  early  years  of  his  madness,  hers  had  been 
the  only  face  he  knew  and  the  only  voice  that  soothed 
him.  She  crept  away  to  Blois  with  her  children,  and 
with  Dunois,  her  husband's  son  but  not  her  own.  The 
others  were  not  of  the  age  nor  of  the  stuff  to  harbor 
revenge,  and  to  him  she  said :  "  You  were  stolen  from 
me,  and  it  is  you  who  are  fit  to  avenge  your  father." 
These  are  fiery  words  from  a  rarely  gentle  yet  cour- 
ageous woman,  grown  vindictive  out  of  her  constancy 
to  a  worthless  man.  She  is  the  one  pure  creature, 
pathetic  and  undefiled,  in  all  this  welter  of  perfidy  and 
brutality.  "  She  shines  in  the  black  wreck  of  things," 
in  Carlyle's  words  concerning  another  "  noble  white 
vision,  with  its  high  queenly  face,  its  soft  proud  eyes," 
of  a  later  day.    There,  at  Blois,  she  died  within  the  year. 


60  THE   STONES   OF  PARIS 

It  would  carry  us  too  far  from  this  tower  to  follow 
the  course  of  the  feud  between  the  heirs  of  these  two 
houses.  "  Philip  the  Good,  Duke  of  Burgundy,  Luxem- 
bourg, and  Brabant,  Earl  of  Holland  and  Zealand,  Lord 
of  Friesland,  Count  of  Flanders,  Artois,  and  Hainault, 
Lord  of  Salins  and  Macklyn,"  was  a  high  and  puissant 
prince,  and  versatile  withal.  "  He  could  fight  as  well 
as  any  king  going,  and  he  could  lie  as  well  as  any,  ex- 
cept the  King  of  France.  He  was  a  mighty  hunter,  and 
could  read  and  write.  His  tastes  were  wide  and  ardent. 
He  loved  jewels  like  a  woman,  and  gorgeous  apparel. 
He  dearly  loved  maids-of-honor,  and,  indeed,  paintings 
generally,  in  proof  of  which  he  ennobled  Jan  van  Eyck. 
.  .  .  In  short,  he  relished  all  rarities,  except  the 
humdrum  virtues."  Charles  of  Orleans,  son  of  Louis, 
was  of  another  kidney.  Spirited  at  the  start,  this 
prince  was  spoiled  by  his  training,  "  like  such  other 
lords  as  I  have  seen  educated  in  this  country,"  says 
Comines ;  "  for  these  were  taught  nothing  but  to  play 
the  jackanapes  with  finery  and  fine  words."  Young 
Charles  d'Orleans  took  his  earliest  lessons  in  rhyme, 
and  he  rhymed  through  life,  through  his  twenty-five 
years  of  captivity  in  England,  until  he  was  old  Charles, 
the  pallid  figure-head  of  a  petty,  babbling,  versifying 
court.  And  the  quarrel  between  the  two  houses  came 
to  nothing  beyond  the  trifle  of  general  misery  for 
France. 

It  was  only  when  Burgundy  came  into  collision  with 
the  crafty  Dauphin  of  France,  the  rebellious  son  of 
Charles  VII.,  who  had  fled  from  his  father's  court 


THREE    TIME-WORN  STAIRCASES  61 

and  taken  refuge  with  Duke  Philip  the  Good,  that  this 
great  house  began  to  fail  in  power.  When  that  Dau- 
phin, become  Louis  XL,  made  royal  entry  into  Paris, 
this  Hotel  de  Bourgogne  showed  all  its  old  bravery. 
From  its  great  court,  through  its  great  gate  on  Rue 
Saint-Denis,  into  the  space  behind  the  town  gate  of 
that  name,  Duke  Philip  rode  forth  on  the  last  day  of 
August,  1 46 1,  at  his  side  his  son — then  Comte  de 
Charolais,  known  later  as  Charles  "  le  Tcmcrairc  " — to 
head  the  glittering  array  of  nobles,  aglow  with  silken 
draperies  and  jewels,  their  horses'  housings  sweep- 
ing the  ground,  who  await  the  new  King.  Few  of  them 
are  quite  sure  "  how  they  stand  "  with  him,  and  they 
hardly  know  how  to  greet  him  as  he  enters,  but  they 
take  the  customary  oaths  when  they  get  to  Notre- 
Dame,  and  thence  escort  him  to  the  old  palace  on  the 
island.  There  they  feasted  and  their  royal  master  pre- 
tended to  be  jolly,  all  the  while  speculating  on  the 
speedy  snuffing-out  of  these  flashing  satellites.  On 
the  morrow  he  took  up  his  residence  in  the  Hotel  des 
Tournelles,  almost  deserted  within,  and  altogether 
without.  For  the  populace  crowded  about  this  Hotel 
de  Bourgogne,  all  eyes  and  ears  for  the  sight  and  the 
story  of  its  splendors.  Its  tapestries  were  the  richest 
ever  seen  by  Parisians,  its  silver  such  as  few  princes 
owned,  its  table  lavish  and  ungrudging.  The  duke's 
robes  and  jewels  were  so  wonderful  that  the  cheering 
mob  ran  after  him,  as  he  passed  along  the  streets,  with 
his  attendant  train  of  nobles  and  his  body-guard  of 
archers. 


62  THE   STONES   OF  PARIS 

With  his  death  died  all  the  pomp  and  show  of  this 
palace.  His  son,  Charles  the  Bold,  wasted  no  time  in 
Paris  from  the  fighting,  for  which  he  had  an  incurable 
itch,  but  no  genius.  He  kept  this  deserted  house  in 
charge  of  a  concierge  for  his  daughter  Mary,  "  the 
richest  heiress  in  Christendom,"  who  was  promised  to 
five  suitors  at  once,  and  who  married  Maximilian  of 
Austria  at  last.  Their  grandson,  the  Emperor  Charles 
V.,  in  one  of  the  many  bargains  made  and  unmade 
between  him  and  Francois  I. — the  one  the  direct  de- 
scendant of  Louis  of  Orleans  and  the  other  the  direct 
descendant  of  John  of  Burgundy — gave  up  to  the 
French  crown  all  that  Burgundy  owned  in  France, 
one  portion  of  it  in  Paris  being  this  Hotel  de  Bour- 
gogne.  By  now  this  once  most  strongly  fortified  and 
best  defended  fortress-home  in  all  the  town  was  fallen 
into  sad  decay,  its  spacious  courts  the  playground  of 
stray  children,  its  great  halls  and  roomy  chambers  a 
refuge  for  tramps  and  rascals.  So  Francois,  casting 
about  for  any  scheme  to  bring  in  money,  and  greedy 
to  keep  alive  the  tradition,  handed  down  from  Hugh 
Capet,  that  gave  to  his  crown  all  the  ground  on  which 
Paris  was  built,  sold  at  auction  this  old  rookery,  along 
with  other  royal  buildings  and  land  in  the  city,  in  the 
year  1543.  This  hotel  was  put  up  in  thirteen  lots,  this 
tower  and  its  dependencies,  Burgundian  additions  of 
the  first  years  of  the  fifteenth  century,  being  numbered 
I,  2,  4,  6,  7,  8,  and  while  all  the  other  structures 
were  demolished,  these  were  kept  entire  by  the  pur- 
chaser, whose  name  has  not  come  down  to  us.     They 


THREE   TIME-WORM  STAIRCASES  63 

may  have  been  "  bid  in  "  by  the  State,  for  they  reap- 
pear as  crown  property  of  Louis  XIII. ;  and  he  gave 
"  what  was  left  of  the  donjon  of  the  Hotel  d'Artois  " 
to  the  monks  of  Sainte-Catherine  du  Val-des-Ecoliers, 
in  exchange  for  a  tract  of  their  land  on  the  northern  side 
of  Rue  Saint-Antoine,  just  west  of  Place  Royale.  By 
this  barter  it  would  seem  that  he  intended  to  carry 
out  one  of  his  father's  cherished  schemes,  to  be  spoken 
of  in  a  later  chapter. 

In  this  donjon  the  good  monks  established  "  store- 
houses "  for  the  poor,  a  phrase  that  may  be  modernized 
into  "  soup-kitchens."  These  were  under  the  control 
of  a  certain  "  Pere  Vincent,"  who  has  been  canonized 
since  as  Saint  Vincent  de  Paul.  This  peasant's  son 
had  grown  up  into  a  tender-hearted  priest,  bountiful 
to  the  poor  with  the  crowns  he  adroitly  wheedled  from 
the  rich.  For  he  had  guile  as  well  as  loving-kindness, 
he  was  a  wily  and  a  jocular  shepherd  to  his  aristocratic 
flock,  he  became  the  pet  confessor  of  princesses  and 
the  spiritual  monitor  of  Louis  XIII.  So  zealous  was 
he  in  his  schemes  for  the  relief  of  suffering  men  and 
women,  and  signally  of  children,  that  Parliament  ex- 
postulated, in  fear  that  his  asylums  and  refuges  would 
fill  Paris  with  worthless  vagrants  and  illegitimate  chil- 
dren. His  is  an  exemplary  and  honored  figure  in  the 
Roman  Church,  and  his  name  still  clings  to  this  tower ; 
local  legend,  by  a  curious  twisting  of  tradition,  mak- 
ing him  its  builder! 

While  its  buyer,  at  the  auction,  is  unknown  to  us, 
we  do  know  to  whom  was  knocked  down  one  lot,  that 


64  THE   STONES   OF  PARIS 

holds  records  of  deeper  concern  to  us  than  all  the 
ground  hereabout,  thick  as  it  is  with  historic  foot- 
prints. The  plot  on  the  southeasterly  corner  of  the 
property,  fronting  on  Rue  Mauconseil,  was  purchased 
by  a  band  of  players  for  a  rental  in  perpetuity.  The 
Parliament  of  Paris  had  not  recognized  the  King's 
claim  to  all  these  ownerships,  and  would  not  give  as- 
sent to  some  of  the  sales ;  and  this  perpetual  lease  was 
not  confirmed  by  that  body  without  long  delay.  We 
may  let  the  players  wait  for  this  official  warranty  while 
we  see  who  they  are,  whence  they  come,  and  what  they 
play. 

It  was  a  religious  fraternity,  calling  itself  "  La  Con- 
frerie  de  la  Passion  de  Notre  Seigneur,  Jesus-Christ," 
and  it  had  been  formed,  during  the  closing  years  of 
the  fourteenth  century,  mainly  from  out  of  more  an- 
cient companies.  The  most  ancient  and  reputable  of 
these  was  "  La  Basoche,"  recruited  from  the  law  clerks 
of  the  Palais  de  Justice,  players  and  playwrights  both. 
This  troupe  had  enjoyed  a  long,  popular  existence  be- 
fore it  received  legal  existence  from  Philippe  "  le  Bel," 
early  in  that  same  fourteenth  century.  From  its  ranks, 
reinforced  by  outsiders — among  them,  soon  after  1450, 
a  bachelor  of  the  University,  Franqois  Villon — were 
enlisted  the  members  of  "  Lcs  Enfants  sans  Souci." 
Other  ribald  mummers  called  themselves  "Lcs  Sots." 
Men  from  all  these  bands  brought  their  farcical  gross- 
ness  to  mitigate  the  pietistic  grossness  of  our  Con- 
frerie,  and  this  fraternity  soon  grew  so  strong  as  to 
get  letters-patent  from  Charles  VI.,  granting  it  per- 


THREE    TIME-WORN  STAIRCASES  65 

mission  for  publicly  performing  passion-plays  and 
mysteries,  and  for  promenading  the  streets  in  costume. 
Then  the  privileged  troupe  hired  the  hall  of  Trinity 
Hospital  and  turned  it  into  a  rude  theatre,  the  first  in 
Paris,  the  mediaeval  stage  having  been  of  bare  boards 
on  trestles,  under  the  sky  or  under  canvas.  On  the 
site  of  this  earliest  of  French  theatres  are  the  Queen's 
fountain,  placed  in  1732  on  the  northeast  corner  of 
Rues  Saint-Denis  and  Greneta,  and  the  buildings  num- 
bered 28  in  the  latter  and  142  in  the  former  street. 
There,  in  1402,  the  confreres  began  the  work  that  is 
called  play,  and  there  they  remained  until  1545.  Then, 
during  the  construction  of  the  new  house,  they  took 
temporary  quarters  in  the  Hotel  de  Flandres,  not  yet  cut 
up  by  its  purchaser  at  the  royal  sale,  and  settled  finally, 
in  1548,  in  the  Theatre  de  l'Hotel  de  Bourgogne.  By 
then  an  edict  of  Francois  I.  had  banished  from  the  stage 
all  personations  of  Jesus  Christ  and  of  all  holy  charac- 
ters ;  such  other  plays  being  permitted  as  were  "  pro- 
fane and  honest,  offensive  and  injurious  to  no  one." 

The  name  "  mystery  "  does  not  suggest  something 
occult  and  recondite,  even  although  the  Greek  word, 
from  which  it  is  wrongly  derived,  sometimes  refers 
to  religious  services ;  it  carries  back,  rather,  to  the 
Latin  word  signifying  a  service  or  an  office.  The 
plays  called  "  mysteries  "  and  "  moralities  "  were  given 
at  first  in  mediaeval  Latin,  or,  as  time  went  on,  in  the 
vernacular,  with  interludes  in  the  same  Latin,  which 
may  be  labelled  Christian  or  late  Latin.     They  were 

rudimentary  essays  in  dramatic  art,  uncouth  and  gro- 
Vou  I.— 5 


66  THE    STONES    OF   PARTS 

tesque,  in  tone  with  that  "  twilight  of  the  mind,  peopled 
with  childish  phantoms."  Hugo's  description  of  the 
"  tres  belle  moral  itc,  le  bon  jugement  de  Madame  la 
I  'icrgc,"  by  Pierre  Gringoire,  played  in  the  great  hall 
of  the  Palais  de  Justice,  is  too  long  and  labored  to  quote 
here ;  well  worth  quoting  is  the  short  and  vivid  sketch, 
by  Charles  Reade,  of  the  "  Morality  "  witnessed  in 
puerile  delight  by  the  audience,  among  whom  sat 
Gerard,  the  father  of  Erasmus,  at  Rotterdam,  in  the 
same  brave  days  of  Louis  XL  of  France  and  Philip  the 
Good  of  Burgundy. 

He  shows  us  the  clumsy  machinery  bringing  divine 
personages,  too  sacred  to  name,  direct  from  heaven 
down  on  the  boards,  that  they  might  talk  sophistry  at 
their  ease  with  the  Cardinal  Virtues,  the  Nine  Muses,- 
and  the  Seven  Deadly  Sins ;  all  present  in  human 
shape,  and  all  much  alike.  This  dreary  stuff  was  then 
enlivened  by  the  entrance  of  the  Prince  of  the  Powers 
of  Air,  an  imp  following  him  and  buffeting  him  with 
a  bladder,  and  at  each  thwack  the  crowd  roared  in 
ecstasy.  So,  to-day,  the  equally  intelligent  London 
populace  finds  joy  in  the  wooden  staff  of  the  British 
Punch.  When  the  Vices  had  vented  obscenity  and  the 
Virtues  twaddle,  the  Celestials  with  the  Nine  Muses 
went  gingerly  back  to  heaven  on  the  one  cloud  allowed 
by  the  property-man,  and  worked  up  and  down  by 
two  "  supes  "  at  a  winch,  in  full  sight  of  everybody. 
Then  the  bottomless  pit  opened  and  flamed  in  the  cen- 
tre of  the  stage,  and  into  it  the  Vices  were  pushed 
by  the  Virtues  and  the  stage-carpenters,  who  all,  with 


THREE    TIME-WORN  STAIRCASES  67 

Beelzebub,  danced  about  it  merrily  to  sound  of  fife  and 
tabor.  And  the  curtain  falls  on  the  first  act.  "  This 
entertainment  was  writ  by  the  Bishop  of  Ghent  for  the 
diffusion  of  religious  sentiments  by  the  aid  of  the 
senses,  and  was  an  average  specimen  of  theatrical  ex- 
hibitions, so  long  as  they  were  in  the  hands  of  the 
clergy ;  but,  in  course  of  time,  the  laity  conducted 
plays,  and  so  the  theatre,  we  learn  from  the  pulpit, 
has  become  profane." 

The  dulness  of  moralities  and  mysteries  was  relieved 
by. the  farces,  spiced  and  not  nice,  of  the  "  Sots  "  and  the 
"  Basoche  "  on  their  boards.  They  made  fun  of  earthly 
dignitaries,  ridiculing  even  kings.  Thus  they  repre- 
sented Louis  XII.,  in  his  Orleans  thirst  for  money — 
never  yet  quenched  in  that  family — drinking  liquid 
gold  from  a  vase.  Their  easy-going  monarch  took  no 
offence,  avowing  that  he  preferred  that  his  court  should 
laugh  at  his  parsimony,  rather  than  that  his  subjects 
should  weep  for  his  prodigalities.  To  win  applause, 
in  his  role  of  "  le  Pere  du  Peuplc,"  he  encouraged  the 
"  powerful,  disorderly,  but  popular  theatre,"  and  he 
patronized  Pierre  Gringoire,  whose  plays  drew  the 
populace  to  the  booths  about  the  Halles.  The  poet  and 
playwright,  widower  of  Hugo's  happily  short-lived 
Esmeralda,  had  been  again  married  and  put  in  good 
case  by  the  whimsical  toleration  of  Louis  XL,  if  we 
may  accept  the  dates  of  Theodore  de  Banville's  charm- 
ing little  play.  That  monarch,  easily  the  first  comedian 
of  his  time,  allowed  no  rivals  on  the  mimic  stage,  and 
it  languished  during  his  reign.     Nor  did  it  flourish 


68  THE   STOXES    OF  PARIS 

under  Franqois  I.,  whose  brutal  vices  must  not  be 
made  fun  of.  Henri  IV.,  fearless  even  of  mirth,  which 
may  be  deadly,  not  only  gave  smiling  countenance  to 
this  theatre,  but  gave  his  presence  at  times ;  thus  we 
read  that,  with  queen  and  court,  he  sat  through 
"  une  plaisante  farce  "  on  the  evening  of  January  12, 
1607.  The  Renaissance  enriched  the  French  stage, 
along  with  all  forms  of  art,  bringing  translations 
through  the  Italian  of  the  classic  drama.  The  theatre 
of  the  Hotel  de  Bourgogne  became  La  Comedie  Ital- 
ienne,  and  its  records  recall  famous  names,  on  the 
boards  and  in  the  audience,  throughout  long  and  hon- 
orable years.  The  troupe  was  not  free  from  jealousies, 
and  did  not  escape  secessions,  notably  that  of  1598, 
when  the  heavy  old  men  of  the  historic  house  cut 
adrift  the  light  comedians  and  the  young  tragedians, 
who  had  been  recruited  within  a  few  years,  mainly 
from  the  country.  Those  who  remained  devoted  them- 
selves to  the  "  legitimate  drama,"  yet  found  place  for 
approved  modern  work,  such  as  that  of  young  Racine. 
The  seceders  betook  themselves  to  buildings  on  the 
east  side  of  Rue  de  Renard,  just  north  of  Rue  de  la 
Verrerie,  convenient  to  the  crowded  quarter  of  la 
Greve ;  but  removed  shortly  to  the  theatre  constructed 
for  them  from  a  tennis-court  in  Rue  Vieille-du-Temple, 
in  the  heart  of  the  populous  Marais.  You  shall  go 
there,  a  little  later,  to  see  the  classic  dramas  of  a  young 
man  from  Rouen,  named  Corneille.  These  players 
called  themselves  "  Lcs  Comcdicns  du  Marais,"  and  by 
[620  had  permission  from  Louis  XIII.  to  take  the  title 


THREE    TIME-WORN  STAIRCASES  69 

of  "  La  Troupe  Royalc."  A  few  years  later,  perhaps 
as  early  as  1650,  all  the  Paris  of  players  and  playgoers 
began  to  talk  about  a  strolling  troupe  in  the  southern 
provinces  and  about  their  manager,  one  Poquelin  de 
Moliere.  How  he  brought  his  comedies  and  his  com- 
pany to  the  capital ;  how  he  put  them  both  up  in  rivalry 
with  the  two'  old  stock  houses ;  how  he  won  his  way 
against  all  their  opposition,  and  much  other  antagon- 
ism— this  is  told  in  our  chapter  on  Moliere. 

In  the  cutting  up  of  the  ancient  domain  of  Robert 
of  Artois,  after  the  royal  sale,  a  short  street  was  run 
north  and  south  through  the  grounds,  and  named 
Francois,  since  feminized  into  Rue  Francaise.  It  lay 
between  the  tower,  whose  lower  wall  may  be  seen  in 
the  rear  of  the  court  of  No.  8,  and  the  theatre  build- 
ings, which  covered  the  sites  of  present  Nos.  7  and  9 
of  this  street  and  extended  over  the  ground  that  now 
makes  Rue  Etienne  Marcel.  The  main  entrance  of  the 
theatre  was  about  where  now  hangs  the  big  gilt  key 
on  the  northern  side  of  that  fragment  of  Rue  Maucon- 
seil,  still  left  after  its  curtailment  by  many  recent  cut- 
tings. Gone  now  is  every  vestige  of  the  theatre  and 
every  stone  of  the  Hotel  de  Bourgogne,  except  this 
tower  of  "  J ean-sans-P cur ." 

By  happy  chance,  or  through  pious  care,  this  pre- 
cious fragment  has  survived  the  centuries  that  looked 
with  unconcern  on  things  of  the  past,  and  has  come 
into  the  safe  keeping  of  our  relic-loving  age.  It  is  an 
authentic  document  from  the  archives  of  the  earliest 
architecture  of  the  fifteenth  century,  convincing  in  its 


THE   STONES    OF  PARIS 


proof  of  the  strength  for  defence  of  ducal  homes  in 
that  day.  Its  massive  stones  are  scrupulously  shaped 
and  fitted,  the  grim  faces  of  its  quadrangular  walls  are 
softened  by  wide  ogival  windows,  its  top  is  crowned 
all  around  by  a  deep  cornice.  Above,  the  former  cor- 
belled machiolations,  heavy  yet  elegant,  are  debased 


Mil    T^^aaKst 


^ 


iteii 


tS'Ip^I 


HBs&g 


The  Tower  uf  "  Jean-sans-Peur." 


THREE    TIME-WORN  STAIRCASES  71 


into  water-spouts,  and  a  new  roof  has  been  added. 
Only  the  southern  and  eastern  sides  of  the  oblong  are 
wholly  disengaged,  the  other  faces  being  mostly  shut 
in  by  crowding  buildings.  On  the  angle  behind  is  a 
tourelle  supported  by  corbels,  and  in  the  ogival  door  is 
a  tympanum,  in  whose  carvings  we  make  out  a  plane 
and  a  plumb-line.  This  was  the  device  of  John  of 
Burgundy,  worn  on  his  liveries,  painted  and  carved 
everywhere.  Louis  of  Orleans  had  chosen  a  bunch 
of  knotted  fagots  as  his  emblem,  with  the  motto  "  Je 
I'ennuie;  "  and  Burgundy's  arrogant  retort  was  the 
plane  that  cut  through  all  that  was  not  in  plumb-line 
with  his  measurements,  and  the  motto  in  Flemish  "  Ik 
hond,"  meaning  "  Jc  Ic  ticus." 

The  great  hall  within  has  been  partitioned  off  into 
small  rooms,  fit  for  the  workingmen  and  their  families 
formerly  installed  here ;  so  that  its  ancient  aspect 
of  amplitude  and  dignity  is  somewhat  marred.  We 
"  must  make  believe  very  much,"  to  see  either  the 
sinner  John  mustering  here  his  assassins,  who  file  out 
through  that  door  to  their  rendezvous  with  Orleans, 
or  the  saint  Vincent  gathering  here  his  herd  of  hun- 
gry children.  Happily,  the  grand  stairway,  on  one 
side,  is  unmutilated,  and  it  serves  to  bring  home  to 
us  the  ample  magnificence  of  these  Burgundian  dukes. 
Dagobert's  stair  crawls,  through  twisting  darkness, 
within  its  tower;  Blanche's  stair  modestly  suggests 
a  venture  toward  ease  and  elegance  in  life ;  here  we 
mount  the  stairway  of  a  feudal  chateau,  broad  and 
easy  and  stately,  fitting  frame  for  bejewelled  courtiers 


72  THE   STONES    OF  PARIS 

and  iron-clad  men-at-arms.  Its  one  hundred  and 
thirty-eight  steps,  each  a  single  stone,  turn  spaciously 
about  the  central  column,  which  does  not  reach  to  the 
tower  top.  Its  upper  section  is  carved  into  a  stone 
pot,  from  which  springs  a  stone  oak-tree  to  the  centre 
of  the  vaulted  ceiling  of  the  broad  platform  that  ends 
the  stairway,  the  ribs  of  the  vaulting  outlined  by  carved 
branches  and  foliage.  On  each  floor  below,  a  large 
chamber,  deserted  and  dreary,  opens  on  the  landing- 
place  ;  from  this  upper  stage  a  narrow  staircase  leads, 
through  the  thickness  of  the  wall  and  up  through  the 
tonrclle  on  the  angle,  to  the  tiny  chamber  occupied  by 
John  of  Burgundy,  tradition  tells  us.  Here  in  his  bed- 
room, that  was  an  arsenal,  at  the  top  of  his  impregna- 
ble tower,  the  fearless  one  found  safety  and  sleep.  We 
peep  out  from  his  one  small  window,  and  far  down 
we  see  the  swarming  length  of  Rue  Etienne  Marcel, 
and  hear  the  low  pervasive  murmur  of  Paris  all  astir, 
accented  by  the  shrill  cries  of  the  boys  from  the  ad- 
joining school,  at  play  in  the  courtyard  of  our  tower. 
Their  vorces  chase  back  to  their  shadowy  haunts  all 
these  companions  of  our  stroll  through  the  ages,  and 
call  us  down  to  our  own  time  and  to  our  Paris  of 
to-day. 


THE    SCHOLARS'   QUARTER    OF    THE 
MIDDLE   AGES 


The  Church  of  Satnt-Se'verin. 


THE    SCHOLARS'   QUARTER   OF    THE 
MIDDLE  AGES 

On  that  river-bank  of  the  City-Island  which  is  called 
Quai  aux  Fleurs,  you  will  find  a  modern  house  num- 
bered 1 1 ;  and  you  will  read,  in  the  gold  letters  of  the 
weather-stained  stone  slab  set  in  the  front  wall,  that 
here,  in  1118,  dwelt  Heloise  and  Abelard.  Their  ideal 
heads  are  carved  over  the  two  entrance  doors.  This  is 
the  site  of  the  pleasant  residence  occupied  by  Canon 
Fulbert,  looking  across  its  own  garden  and  the  beach 
to  the  river — one  of  the  dwellings  in  the  cloisters  that 
were  set  apart  for  the  clergy  and  clerks  of  the  cathedral, 
and  of  the  many  parish  churches  clustering  about  it. 
The  chapter  of  Notre-Dame  owned  nearly  all  this  end 
of  the  island  eastwardly  from  the  boundaries  of  the  old 
Palace,  and  had  built  up  this  clerical  village  of  about 
three  dozen  small  houses,  each  within  its  garden  and 
clump  of  acacias,  all  sequestered  and  quiet.  You  may 
see  one  of  these  houses,  still  owned  by  the  cathedral, 
and  happily  left  unchanged,  at  No.  6  Rue  Massillon. 
Its  low  two  stories  and  tiled  roof  on  the  court  keep 
their  old-time  look,  and  within  is  a  good  staircase,  with 
a  wooden  railing  of  the  days  before  wrought  iron  came 
into  use.     Boileau-Despreaux  has  mounted  this  stair- 

75 


76  THE   STONES    OF  PARIS 

case,  for  he  certainly  visited  this  abode  of  the  Abbe 
Menage,  who  had  literary  and  scientific  salons  here,  on 
Wednesday  evenings.  Boileau  himself  lived  in  these 
cloisters  for  many  years,  and  here  he  died ;  and  here 
had  died  Philibert  Delorme  and  Pierre  Lescot.  These 
and  many  another,  not  connected  with  the  Church, 
sought  this  quarter  for  its  quiet.  It  was  quiet  enough, 
shut  in  as  it  was  by  its  own  walls,  that  made  of  it  a 
cite  inside  the  City  of  the  Island.  The  two  gates  at  the 
western  ends  of  present  Rues  du  Cloitre-Notre-Dame 
and  Chanoinesse,  with  two  others  on  the  shore,  were 
safely  closed  and  barred  at  nightfall,  against  all  intru- 
sion of  the  profane  and  noisy  world  without.  So  greedy 
for  quiet  had  the  dwellers  grown,  that  they  would  not 
permit  the  bridge — the  Pont-Rouge,  the  seventeenth- 
century  predecessor  of  Pont  Saint-Louis — to  step 
straight  out  from  Saint  Louis's  island  to  their  own,  lest 
the  speed  of  traffic  should  perturb  them ;  they  made  it 
turn  at  an  angle,  until  it  set  its  twisted  foot  on  the  re- 
tired spot  where  now  Rues  des  Ursins  and  des  Chantres 
meet  in  a  small  open  space.  The  southern  shore  by  the 
side  of  the  cathedral  was  given  up  to  the  Archbishop's 
palace  and  garden  ;  and  the  piece  of  waste  land,  behind 
the  cathedral  and  outside  the  wall,  known  as  Le  Ter- 
rain, was  in  1750  banked  up  into  the  quay  at  the  end 
of  the  present  pretty  garden.  All  around  the  northern 
and  eastern  sides  of  the  original  Notre-Dame,  stretched 
the  Gothic  arched  cloisters,  and  in  them  the  Church 
taught  what  little  it  thought  fit  its  scholars  should  learn. 
1 1  ere,  toward  the  end  of  the  eleventh  century,  Pierre 


THE   SCHOLARS'    QUARTER  77 

Abelard  was  an  eager  pupil  of  Guillaume  de  Cham- 
peaux ;  and  early  in  the  next  century,  here  and  in  the 
gardens  of  Saint-Genevieve,  he  was  a  honey-tongued 
teacher.  He  lodged  in  the  house  of  Canon  Fulbert,  in 
whose  niece  of  seventeen — less  than  half  his  own  age 
— he  found  an  ardent  learner,  not  alone  in  theology. 
Here,  on  this  spot,  she  taught  herself  that  devotion 
to  the  poor-spirited  lover  who  was  so  bold-spirited  a 
thinker;  a  devotion,  that,  outlasting  his  life  by  the 
twenty  years  of  her  longer  life,  found  expression  in 
her  dying  wish,  put  into  verse  by  Alexander  Pope : 

"  May  one  kind  Grave  unite  each  hapless  Name, 
And  graft  my  Love  immortal  on  thy  Fame." 

He  died  at  the  Priory  of  Saint-Marcel  near  Chalons, 
whose  prior  sent  the  body,  at  her  request,  to  Heloise, 
then  Abbess  of  the  Convent  at  Nogent-sur-Seine,  and 
famed  as  a  miracle  of  erudition  and  piety.  She  was 
buried  in  the  grave  she  there  dug  for  him,  and  in  1800, 
when  her  convent  was  destroyed,  leaving  no  stone,  the 
tomb  and  its  contents  were  removed  to  the  Museum  of 
French  Monuments  in  Paris,  and  in  1817  they  were 
placed  in  Pere-Lachaise. 

We  willingly  lose  sight  of  Abelard's  sorry  story  in 
face  of  his  splendid  powers.  These  came  into  play  at 
a  period  of  mental  and  spiritual  awakening,  brought 
about  by  unwonted  light  from  all  quarters  of  the  sky. 
Theological  questions  filled  the  air ;  asked,  not  only  by 
priests  and  clerks,  but  by  the  silly  crowd  and  by  wist- 
ful children,  and  by  gray-headed  men  sitting  on  school 


7S  THE    STONES    OF   PARIS 


benches.  The  Crusades,  failing  in  material  conquest, 
had  won  the  Holy  Land  of  Eastern  Learning ;  and  Con- 
stantinople, lost  later  to  the  Christian  world,  gave 
to  it  fleeing  Greek  scholars,  carrying  precious  manu- 
scripts, Byzantine  logic  and  physics,  all  through  Eu- 
rope. Pious  soldiers,  coming  home  with  wealth ;  stay- 
at-home  churchmen,  who  had  amassed  riches  ;  royalty, 
anxious  to  placate  Rome — all  these  built  colleges, 
founded  scholarships,  endowed  chairs,  subsidized 
teachers. 

From  the  cloisters  on  the  island — the  cradle  of  the 
University,  as  the  Palace  at  the  other  end  of  the  island 
was  the  cradle  of  the  Town — from  the  new  cathedral 
that  Abelard  had  not  seen,  the  schools  stepped  over  to 
the  mainland  on  the  south.  There,  on  the  shore,  were 
built  the  College  of  the  Four  Nations,  and  the  School  of 
Medicine,  alongside  that  annex  of  the  old  Hotel-Dieu, 
which  was  reached  by  the  little  bridge,  that  went  only 
the  other  day,  and  that  led  from  the  central  structure 
on  the  island.  From  this  shore  the  scholars'  quarter 
spread  up  the  slope  to  the  summit  of  Mont-Sainte-Gene- 
vieve.  There  teachers  and  scholars  met  in  the  clois- 
ters of  the  great  abbey,  that  had  grown  up  around  the 
tomb  of  the  patron  saint  of  Paris,  where  now  stands  the 
Pantheon.  Of  the  huge  basilica,  its  foundations  laid 
by  Clovis — who  had  paid  for  a  victory  by  his  baptism 
into  Christianity — there  is  left  the  tower,  rising,  aged 
and  estranged,  above  the  younger  structures  of  the 
Lycee  Henri  IV.  Its  foundations  under  ground  are  of 
Clovis,  its  lower  portion  is  of  eleventh-century  rebuild- 


THE    SCHOLARS'    QUARTER  79 


ing,  its  upper  portion  of  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth 
centuries.  The  plan  of  his  cloisters,  and  some  of  its 
stones,  are  kept  in  the  arches  of  the  college  court,  to 
which  one  enters  from  No.  23  Rue  Clovis.  And,  in  the 
street  named  for  his  wife,  Clotilde,  you  may  see  the 
massive  side  wall  of  the  abbey  refectory,  now  the  col- 
lege chapel. 

Around  about  the  southern  side  of  the  abbey,  and 
around  the  schools  on  the  slope  below,  that  were  the 
beginning  of  the  University,  Philippe-Auguste  threw 
the  protecting  arm  of  his  great  wall.  Within  its  clasp 
lay  the  Pays  Latin,  wherein  that  tongue  was  used  ex- 
clusively in  those  schools.  This  language,  sacred  to 
so-called  learning  and  unknown  to  the  vulgar,  seemed 
a  fit  vehicle  for  the  lame  science  of  the  doctor,  and  the 
crippled  dialectics  of  the  theologian,  both  always  in 
arms  against  the  "  new  learning."  It  was  not  until  the 
close  of  Henri  IV. 's  reign,  that  it  was  thought  worth 
while  to  use  the  French  language  in  the  classes.  All 
through  the  Middle  Ages,  this  University  was  a  world- 
centre  for  its  teaching,  and  through  all  the  ages  it  has 
been  "  that  prolific  soil  in  which  no  seeds,  which  have 
once  been  committed  to  it,  are  ever  permitted  to  per- 
ish." While  la  Cite  was  the  seat  of  a  militant  Church, 
and  la  Ville  the  gathering-place  of  thronging  merchants, 
this  hill-side  swarmed  with  students,  and  their  officials 
were  put  to  it  to  house  them  properly  and  keep  them 
orderly.  They  got  on  as  best  they  might,  ill-lodged,  ill- 
fed,  ill-clad,  often  begging,  always  roistering,  in  the 
streets.    By  day  the  sedate  burghers  of  the  other  quar- 


80  THE    STONES   OF  PARIS 

ters  trembled  for  their  ducats  and  their  daughters,  and 
found  peace  only  when  night  brought  the  locking  of 
the  gate  of  the  Petit-Chatelet,  and  the  shutting  up  in 
their  own  district  of  the  turbulent  students. 

Turbulent  still,  the  students  of  our  day,  of  every  land 
and  all  tongues — except  Latin — stream  through  the 
streets  of  the  Latin  Quarter,  intent  on  study,  or  on 
pleasure  bent.  Only  the  Revolution  has  ever  thinned 
their  ranks,  what  time  the  Legislative  Assembly  near- 
ly wrecked  the  parent  University,  with  all  its  offspring 
throughout  France.  Napoleon  rescued  them  all,  and 
by  his  legislation  of  1806  and  1808,  the  LTniversity 
has  been  builded  solidly  on  the  foundations  of  the 
State.  The  ancient  scholars'  quarter,  unlighted  and  un- 
drained  and  unhealthful,  is  almost  all  gone ;  its  narrow,  ■ 
tortuous  streets  are  nearly  all  widened  or  wiped  out ; 
open  spaces  and  gardens  give  it  larger  lungs ;  its  dark, 
damp,  mouldy  colleges  have  made  way  for  grandiose 
structures  of  the  latest  sanitation.  Yet  the  gray  walls 
of  the  annex  of  the  Hotel-Dieu  still  gloom  down  on  the 
narrow  street ;  the  fifteenth-century  School  of  Medi- 
cine, its  vast  hall  perverted  to  base  uses,  is  hidden  be- 
hind the  entrance  of  No.  15  Rue  de  la  Bucherie ;  and 
above  the  buildings  on  the  west  side  of  Rue  de  l'Hotel- 
Colbert  rises  the  rotunda  of  its  later  amphitheatre.  Rue 
Galande  retains  many  of  its  houses  of  the  time  of 
Charles  IX.,  when  these  gables  on  the  street  were 
erected.  Except  for  the  superb  facade  at  No.  29  Rue 
de  la  Parchemincrie — a  municipal  residence  dating 
from  about  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century — that 


THE   SCHOLARS'    QUARTER 


Rue  Hautefeuille,  a  Survivor  of  the  Scholars'  Quarter. 

venerable  street  remains  absolutely  unaltered  since  its 

very  first  days,  when  the  parchment-makers  took  it  for 

their  own.    Some  of  their  parchment  seems  to  be  still 

on  sale  in  its  shop  windows.    In  the  ancient  house  No. 

8  Rue  Boutebrie  you  will  find  as  perfect  a  specimen 
Vol.  I.— 6 


82  THE   STONES   OF  PARIS 

of  a  mediaeval  staircase,  its  wooden  rail  admirably 
carved,  as  is  left  in  Paris.  And  the  street  of  the  Moun- 
tain of  Sainte-Genevieve  still  winds,  stonily  steep,  up 
the  slope. 

Nothing  of  Rue  du  Fouarre,  as  it  was  known  to 
Rabelais  and  Dante,  is  left  but  its  name  in  the  broadened 
curtailment  of  this  most  ancient  street.  That  name 
comes  from  the  old  French  word  meaning  "  forage," 
and  was  given  to  it  at  the  time  when  the  wealthier  stu- 
dents bought  near  there  and  brought  into  it  the  trusses 
of  hay  and  straw,  which  they  spread  on  the  floor  for 
seats  during  the  lectures,  the  reader  himself  being 
seated  on  a  rude  dais  at  the  end  of  the  hall.  The  for- 
age market  is  still  held,  not  far  away,  in  Place  Maubert. 
And  the  churches  of  Saint- Julien-le-Pauvre  and  of. 
Saint-Severin  are  unchanged,  except  by  age,  since 
those  days  when  their  bells  were  the  only  timekeepers 
for  lecturers  and  lectured ;  giving  signal,  throughout 
the  day,  for  the  divisions  of  the  classes,  until  vespers 
told  that  the  working-day  was  done.  The  schools 
opened  with  the  early  mass  at  Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre, 
then  the  chapel  adjoining  the  Hotel-Dieu,  now  an  ex- 
quisite relic  of  simple  twelfth-century  Gothic.  Still 
older  had  been  Saint-Severin,  a  chapel  of  the  earliest 
years  of  the  monarchy,  destroyed  by  the  Normans  when 
they  camped  just  here  in  866,  besieging  the  island  city 
and  making  their  onslaught  on  the  wooden  tower  that 
guarded  the  abutment  of  the  Petit-Pont  on  the  main- 
land. The  twelve  heroes,  who  held  that  tower  against 
the  Norman  horde,  are  commemorated  by  the  tablet 


H 


THE   SCHOLARS'    QUARTER  83 

in  the  wall  of  Place  du  Petit-Pont.  Saint-Severin  was 
rebuilt  in  the  thirteenth  century,  and  its  vast  burial- 
ground  on  the  south  covered  by  the  buildings  and  the 
street  of  la  Parcheminerie.  So  that  of  the  University 
seen  by  Dante,  we  can  be  sure  only  of  the  body  of  Saint- 
Severin — its  tower  was  built  in  1347 — and  of  Saint- 
Julien-le-Pauvre,  and  the  buildings  that  are  glued  to  it. 
Dante's  bronze  figure  looks  pensively  down  from  the 
terrace  of  the  College  de  France  on  all  the  noise  and 
the  newness  of  modern  Rue  des  Ecoles.  The  date  of 
his  short  stay  in  Paris  cannot  be  fixed,  but  it  was  cer- 
tainly after  his  exile  from  Florence,  therefore  not 
earlier  than  1302,  and  probably  not  later  than  1310,  his 
own  years  being  a  little  less,  or  a  little  more,  than  forty. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  his  having  visited  Paris, 
for  Boccaccio,  his  admirer  and  biographer,  records  the 
fact;  told  him  perhaps  by  the  elder  Boccaccio,  who 
lived  in  the  capital — where  his  famous  son  was  born 
— and  who  probably  met  the  expatriated  poet  there. 
And  in  the  tenth  canto  of  "  Paradiso,"  we  find  these 
words  in  Longfellow's  translation: 

"  It  is  the  light  eternal  of  Sigieri, 

Who,  reading  lectures  in  the  street  of  straw, 
Did  syllogize  individious  verities." 

This  closing  line,  meaning  that  Sigier  of  Brabant 
had  the  courage  to  speak  truths  that  were  unpopular, 
explains  why  he  was  Dante's  favorite  lecturer.  In  Bal- 
zac's pretty  fragment  of  romance,  in  which  the  great 
Frenchman  makes  so  vivid  the  presence  of  the  great 


84  THE   STONES   OF  PARIS 

Italian,  the  home  of  the  latter  is  in  one  of  the  small 
houses  on  the  extreme  eastern  end  of  the  City  Island 
— such  as  the  modest  dwelling  in  which  died  Boileau- 
Despreaux,  four  centuries  later.  From  there,  Balzac 
has  Dante  ferried  over  to  Quai  de  la  Tournelle,  and 
so  stroll  to  his  lectures.  But  Dante's  home  was  really 
in  that  same  street  of  straw,  to  which  he  had  come  from 
his  quarters  away  south  on  the  banks  of  the  Bievre,  too 
far  away  from  the  schools.  He  had  taken  up  his  abode 
in  that  rural  suburb,  on  first  coming  to  Paris,  as  did 
many  men  of  letters,  of  that  time  and  of  later  times, 
who  were  drawn  to  the  pleasant,  quiet  country  without 
the  walls. 

There  was  one  among  these  men  to  whose  home,  tra- 
dition tells  us,  Dante  was  fond  of  finding  his  way,  after- 
he  had  come  to  live  in  the  narrow  town  street.  The 
grave  figure  goes  sedately  up  Rue  Saint-Jacques,  al- 
ways the  great  southern  thoroughfare,  passing  the  an- 
cient chapel  of  the  martyrs,  Saint-Benoit-le-Betourne, 
and  the  home  and  shelter  for  poor  students  in  theology, 
started  by  the  earnest  confessor  of  Saint  Louis,  Robert 
de  Sorbon.  The  foundations  of  his  little  chapel,  built 
in  1276,  were  unearthed  in  1899  during  the  digging  for 
the  new  Sorbonne ;  and  its  walls  are  outlined  in  white 
stone  in  the  gray  pavement  of  the  new  court.  Not  a 
stone  remains  of  the  old  Sorbonne,  not  a  stone  of  the 
rebuilt  Sorbonne  of  Richelieu,  except  his  chapel  and 
his  tomb  ;  well  worth  a  visit  for  the  exquisite  beauty  of 
its  detail.  But  the  soul  of  the  historic  foundation  lives 
on,  younger  than  ever  to-day,  in  its  seventh  century  of 


THE   SCHOLARS'    QUARTER  85 

youth.  Through  Porte  Saint- Jacques,  Dante  passes 
to  the  dwelling,  just  beyond,  of  Jean  de  Meung,  its  site 
now  marked  by  a  tablet  in  the  wall  of  the  house  No.  218 
Rue  Saint-Jacques.  No  doubt  it  was  a  sufficiently 
grand  mansion  in  its  own  grounds,  for  it  was  the  home 
of  the  well-to-do  parents  of  the  poet,  whose  lameness 
gave  him  the  popular  nickname  of  "  Clopinel,"  pre- 
ferred by  him  to  the  name  by  which  he  is  best  known, 
which  came  from  his  natal  town.  In  this  home,  a  few 
years  earlier,  he  had  finished  his  completion  of  "  Le 
Roman  de  la  Rose,"  one  of  the  earliest  of  French 
poems,  a  biting  satire  on  women  and  priests,  begun  by 
Guillaume  de  Lorris.  "  Clopinel "  carried  on  the  un- 
finished work  to  such  perfection,  that  he  is  commonly 
looked  on  as  the  sole  author.  Dante  admired  the  work 
as  fully  as  did  Chaucer,  who  has  left  a  translation  into 
English  of  a  portion : — so  admirable  a  version  that  it 
moved  Eustace  Deschamps  to  enthusiasm  in  his  ballad 
to  "  le  grand  translateur,  noble  Geoff  roi  Chaucer" 
And  Dante  liked  the  workman  as  well,  his  equal  in 
genius,  many  of  their  contemporaries  believed ;  and  we 
shall  not  aggrieve  history,  if  we  insist  on  seeing  the 
grim-visaged  Florentine  and  the  light-hearted  Gaul 
over  a  bottle  of  petit  vin  de  Vouvray  or  de  Chinon — 
for  the  vineyards  of  this  southern  slope  of  Paris  had 
been  rooted  up  by  the  builder  early  in  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury— in  the  low-browed  living-room,  discussing  po- 
etry and  politics,  the  schism  in  the  Church,  the  quarrel 
between  the  French  King  and  his  spiritual  father  of 
Rome. 


86  THE   STONES   OF  PARIS 

Behind  us  in  Rue  Saint-Jacques,  beneath  the  new 
Sorbonne,  we  have  left  the  site  of  the  chapel  of  Saint- 
Benoit-le-Betourne.  The  entrance  to  its  cloisters  and 
gardens  was  opposite  Rue  du  Cimetiere-Saint-Benoit, 
a  short  street,  now  widened,  that  retains  a  few  of  its 
ancient  houses,  the  cemetery  at  its  farther  end  being 
entirely  builded  over.  This  entrance-gate  is  standing 
in  the  gardens  of  the  Cluny  Museum,  and  we  see  it  as  it 
was  first  seen  by  the  boy  Franqois  Villon,  and  last  seen 
when  he  fled  under  it,  after  killing  a  priest  in  the  clois- 
ters. He  got  his  name  from  the  worthy  canon  of  Saint- 
Benoit,  Guillaume  de  Villon,  who  took  in  the  waif  and 
gave  him  a  roof  and  food,  and  tried  to  give  him 
morals  ;  and  it  is  by  his  name  that  the  poet  is  known  in 
history  rather  than  by  the  other  names,  real  or  assumed, 
that  he  bore  during  his  shifty  life.  He  lived  here  with 
his  "  more  than  father,"  as  the  young  scamp  came  to 
own  that  the  canon  had  been  ;  whose  house  in  the  clois- 
ter gardens,  named  "  la  Porte  Rouge,"  was  not  far 
from  the  house  of  the  canon  Pierre  de  Vaucel,  with 
whose  niece  Franqois  got  into  his  first  scrape.  Loving 
her  then,  he  libelled  her  later  in  his  verse. 

Full  of  scrapes  of  all  sorts  were  his  thirty  short  years 
of  life — he  was  born  in  the  year  of  the  burning  of  Joan 
the  Maid,  and  he  slips  out  of  sight  and  of  record  in  1461 
— and  it  needed  all  his  nimble  wits  to  keep  his  toes  from 
dangling  above  ground  and  his  neck  from  swinging  in 
a  noose.  They  did  not  keep  him  from  poverty  and 
hunger  and  prison.  Parliament,  nearly  hanging  him, 
banished  him  instead  from  Paris,  and  the  footsore  cock- 


THE   SCHOLARS'    QUARTER  87 

ney  figure  is  seen  tramping  through  Poitou,  Berri, 
Bourbonnais.  Louis  XI.  finds  him  in  a  cell  at  Meung 
and,  sympathizing  with  rascality  that  was  not  political, 
sets  him  free  and  on  foot  again ;  so  playing  Providence 
to  this  starveling  poet  as  he  did  to  Gringoire.  And 
from  Meung,  Francois  Villon  steals  out  of  history, 
leaving  to  us  his  "  Small  "  and  "  Large  Testament,"  a 
few  odes  and  sonnets,  with  bits  of  wholly  exquisite 
song.  No  French  poet  before  him  had  put  himself 
into  his  verse,  and  it  is  this  flavor  of  personality  that 
gives  its  chiefest  charm  to  his  work.  We  are  won 
by  the  graceless  vagabond,  who  casts  up  and  tells  off 
his  entire  existence  of  merriment  and  misery,  in  the 
words  of  Mr.  Henley's  superb  translation : 

"  Booze  and  the  blowens  cop  the  lot." 

He  seems  to  be  owning  to  it,  this  slight,  alert  figure 
of  bronze  in  Square  Monge,  as  he  faces  the  meeting- 
place  of  wide  modern  streets.  The  spaciousness  of  it  all 
puzzles  him,  who  prowled  about  the  darkest  purlieus, 
and  haunted  the  uncleanest  cabarets,  of  the  old  Uni- 
versity quarter.  He  is  struck  suddenly  quiescent  in  his 
swagger ;  his  face,  slightly  bent  down,  shows  the  poet 
dashed  with  the  reprobate ;  his  expression  and  attitude 
speak  of  struggling  shame  and  shamelessness.  His 
right  hand  holds  a  manuscript  to  his  breast,  his  left 
hand  clasps  the  dagger  in  his  belt.  Behind,  on  the 
ground,  lie  the  mandolin  of  the  poet-singer  and  the 
shackles  of  the  convict.  It  is  a  delightfully  expressive 
statue  of  Francois  Villon,  by  his  own  election  one  of 


THE   STONES    OF  PARIS 


the  "  Enfants  sans  Souci,"  and  by  predestination  a 
child  of  grievous  cares. 

From  Square  Monge  it  is  but  a  step  to  the  tablet  that 
marks  the  place  of  Porte  Saint- Victor,  on  the  northern 
side  of  the  remnant  left  of  the  street  of  that  name.  It  is 
but  a  step  in  the  other  direction  to  the  tablet  on  the  wall 
of  No.  50  Rue  Descartes,  which  shows  the  site  of  Porte 
Saint-Marcel,  sometimes  called  the  Porte  Bordee. 
Through  either  of  these  gates  of  the  great  wall  one 
might  pass  to  the  home  of  a  poet,  a  hundred  years  after 
Villon  had  gone  from  sight ;  like  him,  born  to  true  poet- 
ry, but  unlike  him  who  was  born  to  rags,  Pierre  de  Ron- 
sard  was  born  to  the  purple.  He  was  a  gentleman  of 
noble  lineage,  he  had  been  educated  at  the  famous  Col- 
lege de  Navarre,  the  college  at  that  period  of  Henri  III. 
and  of  the  Duke  of  Guise,  le  Balafrc — its  site  and  its 
prestige  since  taken  by  the  Ecole  Polytechnique — he  had 
entered  the  court  of  the  Duke  of  Orleans  as  a  page,  he 
had  gone  to  Scotland  as  one  of  the  escort  of  Madeleine  of 
France,  on  her  marriage  with  James  V.  He  was  counted 
among  the  personal  friends  of  Mary  Stuart  and  of 
Charles  IX.,  and  by  him  was  selected  always  as  a  part- 
ner in  tennis.  That  King  visited  Ronsard  here,  and  so, 
too,  did  his  brother  Henri  III.  Tasso  found  his  way 
here,  while  in  Paris  in  1571,  in  the  train  of  Cardinal 
Louis  d'Estc.  It  seems  that  nothing  in  all  France  was 
to  Tasso's  taste,  except  the  windmills  on  Montmartre; 
easily  in  view,  at  that  day,  from  the  Louvre,  at  whose 
windows  he  watched  the  ceaseless  whirling  of  their 
sails,   which   mitigated   his   boredom.     Twenty  years 


**■ 


~< 


* 


'"•■ 


i 


Pierre  de  Ronsard. 

(From  a  drawing  by  an  unknown  artist,   in  a  private  collection.) 


THE   SCHOLARS'    QUARTER 


earlier,  Rabelais  was  fond  of  ferrying-  across  the  river, 
from  his  home  in  Rue  des  'Jardins-Saint-Paul,  to  prowl 
about  his  once  familiar  haunts  in  this  quarter,  and  to 
drop  in  on  Ronsard  and  Baif,  the  leaders  of  the  school 
of  "  learned  poets."  They  lived  in  Rue  des  Fosses- 
Saint-Victor,  the  street  formed  over  the  outer  ditch  of 
the  wall,  now  named  Rue  du  Cardinal-Lemoine.  Their 
house  and  grounds,  just  at  the  corner  of  present  Rue 
des  Boulangers,  have  been  cut  through  and  away  by 
the  piercing  of  Rue  Monge.  Here,  Ronsard  looked 
across  the  meadows  to  the  Seine,  while  he  strolled  in  the 
gardens,  book  in  hand,  eager  "  to  gather  roses  while  it 
is  called  to-day,"  in  the  words  of  Mr.  Andrew  Lang's 
version  of  the  "  Prince  of  Poets."  For  Ronsard's  deaf- 
ness, which  had  cut  short  his  adroit  diplomatic  career, 
had  given  him  quicker  vision  for  all  beauty ;  and  his 
verse,  Greek  and  Latin  and  French,  trips  to  the  music 
made  in  him  by  the  sights  and  scents  of  summer,  by 
roses  and  by  women,  by  the  memories  of  "  shadow- 
loves  and  shadow-lips."  And,  still  rhyming,  this  most 
splendid  of  that  constellation — those  singers,  attuned 
to  stately  measure,  called  the  Pleiades — died  in  the 
year  1585,  soon  after  his  sixtieth  birthday. 

From  here  we  go  straight  away  over  the  hill  of 
Sainte-Genevieve  and  through  Porte  Saint-Michel — 
nearly  at  the  meeting-place  of  Rues  Soufflot  and  Mon- 
sieur-le-Prince  and  Boulevard  Saint-Germain — to  the 
house,  also  in  the  fields  outside  the  wall,  where  dwelt 
Clement  Marot,  a  poet  who  sang  pleasantly  of  the 
graces  of  life,  too,  but  who  had  a  more  serious  strain 


go  THE   STONES   OF  PARIS 

deep  down.  The  "  Chcval  d'Airan  " — so  was  the  house 
named — was  a  gift  to  the  poet  from  Francois  I.  "  for 
his  good,  continuous,  and  faithful  services."  These 
services  consisted  chiefly  in  the  writing  of  roundelays 
and  verses,  in  which  "  he  had  a  turn  of  his  own,"  says 
Sainte-Beuve ;  a  turn  of  grace  and  of  good  breeding, 
and  no  passion  that  should  startle  the  King's  sister, 
good  Marguerite  of  Navarre,  who  had  made  him  her 
groom  of  the  chamber.  He  had  been  a  prisoner  at  Pavia 
with  the  King,  and  his  life  had  been  spent  in  the  camp 
and  the  court.  At  Ferrara,  in  1534,  he  had  met  his 
fellow-countryman  Calvin,  and  returned  to  Paris  to 
prove  his  strengthened  convictions  in  the  new  heresies 
by  those  translations  of  the  psalms,  which  carried  com- 
fort to  Calvin  and  to  Luther,  and  which  have  given  to- 
their  writer  his  permanent  place  in  French  literature. 
During  this  period  he  lived  in  this  grand  mansion,  the 
site  of  which  is  exactly  covered  by  the  houses  No.  27 
Rue  de  Tournon  and  No.  30  Rue  de  Conde.  And  from 
here  Marot  went  into  exile,  along  with  the  well-to-do 
Huguenots,  who  clung  together  in  this  quarter  outside 
the  wall.  "  Nous  mitres  I'appclons  la  Petite  Geneve," 
said  d'Aubigne,  and  that  appellation  held  for  a  long 
time.  Its  centre  was  the  short,  narrow  lane  in  the 
marshes,  named  later  Rue  des  Marais-Saint-Germain, 
and  now  Rue  Visconti,  wherein  the  persecuted  sect  had 
their  hidden  place  of  worship.  On  its  corner  with 
the  present  Rue  de  Seine  was  the  home  of  Jean  Cousin, 
that  gentleman-worker  in  stained  glass — the  sole  handi- 
craft allowed  to  men  of  birth — who  has  left  for  our 


THE   SCHOLARS'    QUARTER  91 


joy  that  exquisite  window  in  the  Church  of  Saint-Ger- 
vais.  At  the  western  end  of  the  lane  was  the  residence 
built  for  himself  by  Baptiste  du  Cerceau,  son  of  the 
illustrious  Jacques  Androuet,  and  as  stanch  as  was 
his  father  for  the  faith.  His  great  mansion  took  up 
the  whole  end  of  the  block,  on  the  ground  covered  now 
by  the  equally  large  building  that  makes  32  Rue  Jacob, 
21  Rue  Bonaparte,  and  23  and  25  Rue  Visconti.  A 
portion  of  this  latter  structure  may  be  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  Baptiste  du  Cerceau,  a  Huguenot  by  birth 
and  bringing-up,  had  yet  joined  Henri  III.'s  famous 
"  Forty-Five,"  in  1575,  when  he  was  only  twenty  years 
old.  For  ten  years  he  served  that  King  as  soldier  and 
architect,  and  then,  rather  than  attend  mass  or  conform 
against  his  convictions,  he  left  King  and  court  and 
home  in  1585.  He  came  back  with  Henri  IV.  as  royal 
architect,  to  find  that  his  elegant  residence  had  fallen 
into  ruin. 

When  Bernard  Palissy,  released  from  his  dungeon  in 
Bordeaux,  came  to  Paris,  he  was  made  "  Worker  in 
Earth  and  Inventor  of  Rustic  Figulines,"  for  the  new 
abode  in  the  Tile  Fields,  beyond  the  Louvre,  that  was 
planned  for  the  Queen-Mother,  Catherine  de'  Medici. 
"  Bernard  of  the  Tuileries,"  as  he  was  known,  in  order 
to  be  near  his  work,  lodged  on  the  northern  side  of  Rue 
Saint-Honore,  just  east  of  present  Rue  de  Castiglione. 
Later  he  removed  to  Rue  du  Dragon,  nearly  opposite 
the  little  street  now  named  in  his  honor,  and  so  be- 
came one  of  the  colony  of  "  la  Petite  Geneve."  Here  he 
worked  as  he  worked  always  in  his  passion  for  perfec- 


92 


THE   STONES    OF   PARIS 


tion  in  ornamental  pottery,  giving  to  it  all  "  my  affec- 
tion for  pursuing  in  the  track  of  enamels,"  in  his  own 
quaint  words.  For  his  single-mindedness  in  praising 
his  Creator,  and  in  making  worthy  images  of  His  crea- 
tions, he  was  looked  on  as  a  "  huguenot  opiniatrc,"  and 
hated  by  the  powers  of  the  Church  and  State,  who,  fail- 


Balcony  over  the  Entrance  of  the  Cour  du  Dragon. 

ing  to  burn  him,  because  of  the  mercy  of  the  Duke  of 
Mayenne,  cast  him  into  the  Bastille.  With  all  Paris 
hungry,  during  the  siege  of  the  League  by  Henry  of 
Navarre,  the  prisoners  took  their  turn,  and  this  old 
man  renewed  the  experience  of  his  youth,  when  he  had 
starved  himself  for  his  beloved  enamels.  And  so,  at  the 
age  of  eighty,  in  the  year  of  the  stabbing  by  Jacques 
Clement  of  the  most  Christian  King,  Henri  III.,  Ber- 
nard Palissy  died  in  his  cell  "  naturally,"  the  report 


THE   SCHOLARS'    QUARTER  93 

said.  A  medallion  of  the  great  potter  may  be  seen 
over  the  entrance  of  a  house  in  Rue  du  Dragon,  and 
his  statue  stands  in  the  little  garden  of  Saint-Germain- 
des-Pres,  not  far  away.  He  is  in  his  workman's  garb, 
gazing  down  at  a  platter  on  which  he  has  stamped  his 
genius  in  clay. 

We  have  seen  John  Calvin,  fresh  from  Picardy,  a 
student  at  the  College  du  Cardinal-Lemoine,  in  Rue 
Saint-Victor,  and  this  is  his  only  residence  in  Paris 
known  to  us.  Appointed  Cure  of  Pont  l'Eveque,  at 
the  age  of  sixteen,  he  was  induced  by  a  daring  relative 
to  read  the  Bible,  and  the  ultimate  result  was  Calvinism, 
as  it  has  been  interpreted  by  his  bigoted  disciples.  The 
immediate  result  was  his  persecution  by  the  Sorbonne, 
and  his  flight  to  Ferrara,  about  the  year  1534.  There 
he  met  with  welcome  and  protection,  as  did  many  a 
political  fugitive  of  the  time,  from  Renee,  the  reign- 
ing duchess,  as  kindly  a  creature  as  was  her  father, 
Louis  XII.  of  France.  But  her  goodwill  could  not  pre- 
vail against  the  ill-will  of  the  Church,  and  Calvin  was 
forced  to  find  his  way  finally  to  Switzerland,  to  live 
there  for  thirty  useful  years.  Marot,  who  was  with 
Calvin  in  Ferrara,  went  back  to  Paris,  still  counte- 
nanced at  court ;  but  no  favor  of  king  or  king's  sister 
could  save  a  sinner  who  would  eat  meat  during  Lent ; 
and  in  1543  Marot  was  forced  to  flee  to  Italy,  and  died 
in  Turin  in  1544.  He  lives  less  in  his  special  verse 
than  in  his  general  influence,  along  with  Rabelais  and 
Montaigne,  in  the  formation  of  French  letters.  These 
three  cleansed  that  language  into  literature,  by  purg- 


94  THE   STONES   OF  PARIS 

ing   it   of   the   old    Gallic   chaos    and   clumsiness   of 
form. 

So  the  Church  made  a  desert,  and  called  it  peace,  and 
"  Little  Geneva  "  was  at  last  laid  waste,  and  those  lead- 
ers, who  escaped  the  cell  and  the  stake,  were  made  refu- 
gees, because  they  had  been  insurgents  against  enslaved 
thought.  But  they  left  behind  them  him  who  has  been 
styled  the  "  Martyr  of  the  Renaissance,"  Etienne  Dolet. 
Here,  in  Place  Maubert,  this  bronze  figure  on  the  high 
pedestal,  which  he  somehow  makes  serve  as  a  Prot- 
estant pulpit,  looks  all  the  martyr,  with  his  long,  stub- 
born neck,  his  stiff  spine  of  unbending  conviction,  his 
entire  attitude  of  aggressive  devotion  to  principle.  In 
life  he  was  so  strong  and  so  genuine  that  he  made 
friends  almost  as  many  as  enemies.  That  glorious 
woman,  Marguerite  of  Navarre — whose  absurd  devo- 
tion to  her  brother  Francis  is  only  a  lovable  flaw  in 
her  otherwise  faultless  nature — stood  by  Dolet  as  she 
stood  by  so  many  men  who  had  the  courage  to  study 
and  think  and  speak.  She  saved  him  from  execution, 
when  he  had  killed  a  man  in  self-defence  at  Lyons, 
and  she  should  have  been  allowed  to  sit  at  table  with 
the  friends  who  gave  him  a  little  dinner  in  the  Pays 
Latin  to  celebrate  his  escape.  Among  those  about  the 
board  were  Marot,  Rabelais,  Erasmus,  Melancthon, 
tradition  says,  and  says  no  more.  We  are  told  noth- 
ing about  the  speechmakers,  and  we  can  only  guess 
that  they  were  terribly  in  earnest.  Dolet  was  soon 
again  in  arrest  for  printing  books  forbidden  by  the 
Church  ;  his  trial  resulted  in  an  acquittal.    Soon  again 


Clement  Marot. 

(From  the  portrait  by  Porbus  le  Jeune,  in  a  private  collection.) 


THE   SCHOLARS'    QUARTER  95 

he  was  arrested  for  importing  the  forbidden  literature, 
and  escaped  from  prison.  Rearrested,  he  was  speed- 
ily convicted,  and  on  August  3,  1546,  he  was  burned 
in  Place  Maubert,  on  the  spot  where  they  have  put 
his  statue. 

It  was  during  one  of  his  visits  in  later  life  to  Paris 
that  Erasmus  came  to  be  among  these  convives;  per- 
haps at  the  time  he  was  considering,  before  declining, 
the  offer  of  Francois  I.  to  make  him  the  head  of  the 
great  College  Royal,  planned — and  no  more  than 
planned — by  the  King  on  the  site  of  the  Hotel  de  Nesle, 
where  Mazarin  afterward  placed  his  College  of  the 
Four  Nations,  now  the  seat  of  the  Institute.  Many 
years  before  this  visit,  some  time  between  1492  and 
1497,  Erasmus  had  lived  in  Paris,  a  poor  and  unhappy 
student  in  the  College  Montaigu.  It  had  earned  the 
nickname  of  "  College  des  Haricots,"  because  of  the 
Lenten  fare  lavished  on  its  inmates — beans,  stale  eggs, 
spoiled  fish,  and  that  monotony  broken  by  frequent, 
fasts.  Erasmus  had  a  Catholic  conscience,  as  he  owns, 
but  a  Lutheran  stomach  withal,  and  this  semi-starva- 
tion, with  the  filth  and  fleas  in  the  rooms,  sickened 
him  and  drove  him  home  to  cleanly  and  well-fed  Flan- 
ders. From  this  college,  he  says  in  his  "  Colloquia," 
"  I  carried  nothing  but  a  body  infected  with  disease, 
and  a  plentiful  supply  of  vermin."  A  few  years  later 
young  Rabelais  suffered  similar  horrors  at  the  same 
college,  and  has  cursed  its  memories  through  Gran- 
gousier's  capable  lips.  This  "  galley  for  slaves  "  was 
indeed  used  as  a  prison  during  the  Revolution,  and 


96  THE   STONES    OF  PARIS 

was  torn  clown  in  1845,  to  give  place  to  the  Biblio- 
theque  Sainte-Genevieve. 

From  Place  Maubert  we  walk  up  Rue  Monge — 
named  from  the  great  savant  of  the  First  Empire — 
and  down  to  the  seventeenth  century,  to  where,  on  the 
corner  of  Rue  Rollin,  we  find  the  tablet  that  records 
the  scene  of  Blaise  Pascal's  death  in  1662.  He  lived 
and  died  in  the  house  of  his  sister,  in  the  fields  just  be- 
yond Porte  Saint-Marcel.  Thirty-one  years  before,  he 
had  left  Auvergne  for  Paris,  a  precocious  lad  of  eight, 
already  so  skilled  in  mathematics  and  geometry  that 
he  produced  his  famous  treatises  while  still  in  his  teens, 
and  at  the  age  of  twenty-three  was  known  for  his  abil- 
ities throughout  Europe.  No  man  dying,  as  he  did, 
not  yet  forty  years  of  age,  has  left  so  distinct  and  per- 
manent an  impress  on  contemporary,  and  on  later, 
thought. 

He  gained  the  honor  of  being  hated  by  the  Church, 
and  the  Jesuits  named  him  "Porte  d'Enfer."  His 
only  answer  was  the  philosophic  question,  "  How  can 
I  prove  that  I  am  not  the  gate  of  Hell  ? "  This 
many-sided  genius  invented  the  first  calculating  ma- 
chine and  the  first  omnibus.  The  line  was  started  on 
March  18,  1662,  and  ran  from  the  Palace  of  the  Luxem- 
bourg to  the  Bastille.  Its  route  was  probably  by  Rue 
de  la  Harpe — almost  all  gone  under  Boulevard  Saint- 
Michel — across  Petit-Pont  and  the  Island  and  Pont 
Notre-Dame,  to  Place  de  Greve,  and  thence  by  Rues 
Fran^ois-Miron  and  Saint-Antoine,  to  the  gate  and 
the  prison  at  the  end. 


THE   SCHOLARS'    QUARTER  97 

It  was  long  a  matter  of  dispute  between  the  towers 
of  Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie  and  Saint-Jacques- 
du-Haut-Pas — this  latter  much  nearer  his  home — as 
to  which  one  had  been  selected  by  Pascal  for  the  ex- 
periments he  made,  to  prove  his  theory  of  atmospheric 
pressure,  and  to  refute  the  theory  of  his  opponents. 
Within  a  few  years  this  question  has  been  answered 
by  an  old  painting,  found  in  a  curiosity  shop,  which 
represents  Pascal,  barometer  in  hand,  standing  on  the 
top  of  Saint- Jacques-de-la-Boucherie,  beside  the  statue 
of  the  Chimsera,  that  has  been  carried  to  the  Cluny 
Museum.  This  figure  alone  would  fix  the  spot,  but,  in 
addition,  the  picture  gives  a  view  of  old  Paris  that  could 
be  seen  only  from  this  point  of  view.  This  elegant  iso- 
lated tower — all  that  is  left  of  a  church  dating  from 
the  beginnings  of  Christian  construction,  and  destroyed 
during  the  Revolution — was  itself  erected  late  in  the 
fifteenth  and  early  in  the  sixteenth  century,  and  shows 
the  last  effort  of  mediaeval  Gothic  in  Paris.  It  is  now 
used  as  a  weather  observatory,  Pascal's  statue,  by 
Cavelier,  has  been  placed  under  the  great  vaulted  arch 
that  forms  its  base,  and  all  about,  in  the  little  park, 
are  instruments  for  taking  and  recording  all  sorts  of 
atmospheric  changes. 

It  may  have  been  while  driving  between  this  tower 
and  his  sister's  house,  that  Pascal's  carriage  was  Over- 
turned on  Pont-Neuf ,  and  he  narrowly  escaped  death  by 
falling  or  by  drowning.  From  that  clay  he  gave  up  his 
service  to  science,  and  gave  himself  up  solely  to  the  ser- 
vice of  God.  Into  his  "  Thoughts  "  he  put  all  his  depth 
Vol.   I.— 7 


gS  THE   STONES    OF  PARIS 

of  reflection  and  his  intensity  of  feeling,  all  his  force  and 
finish  of  phrase.  Yet,  always  behind  this  Christian 
philosopher,  we  are  conscious  of  the  man  of  feeling, 
who  owns  that  he  could  be  drawn  down  from  his  high 
meditations,  and  could  be  drawn  up  from  his  profound 
melancholy,  by  "  un  pcu  dc  bon  temps,  un  bon  mot,  une 
louange,  une  carcssc." 

His  body  was  laid  in  the  Abbey  Church  of  Sainte- 
Genevieve,  and  was  removed,  on  the  destruction  of 
that  edifice  in  1807, to  its  successor  in  tradition  and  sen- 
timent, Saint-Etienne-du-Mont.  It  rests  at  the  base  of 
one  of  the  outer  pillars  of  the  Lady  Chapel,  opposite  the 
spot  of  Racine's  final  sepulture.  The  two  tablets  from 
their  original  tombs  have  been  set  in  the  pillars  of  the 
first  chapel  on  the  southern  side  of  the  choir,  just  behind 
the  exquisite  rood-screen. 

When  aged  Rue  Rollin  was  quite  young  it  was  chris- 
tened Rue  Neuve-Saint-Etienne,  and  it  was  bordered 
by  cottages  standing  in  their  own  gardens,  looking 
down  the  slope  across  the  town  to  the  river,  this  being 
the  highest  street  on  the  hill-side.  Its  length  has  been 
lessened  by  Rue  Monge,  and  that  portion  left  to  the  east 
of  the  new  street  is  now  Rue  de  Navarre.  Rue  Monge 
was  cut  through  the  crest  of  the  hill,  so  that  one  must 
mount  by  stone  steps  to_the  old  level  of  the  western  end 
of  Rue  Neuve-Saint-Etienne,  named  anew  in  honor  of 
the  scholar  and  historian,  who  has  given  his  name  also 
to  the  great  college,  since  removed  from  this  quarter 
to  Boulevard  Rochechouart,  away  off  on  the  northern 
heights.    Charles  Rollin  was  an  earnest  student,  an  un- 


THE   SCHOLARS'    QUARTER  99 


usually  youthful  Rector  of  the  University,  and  principal 
of  the  College  of  Beauvais  in  1696,  and  a  writer  of  his- 
tory and  belles-lettres  of  great  charm  but  little  weight. 
He  was,  withal,  an  honest  soul,  somewhat  naive,  of 
simple  tastes  and  of  quiet  life.  So  he  came  to  this  se- 
cluded quarter,  when  a  little  over  seventy,  and  here  he 
died  in  1741.  His  cottage  is  numbered  8  in  the  street, 
and  is  occupied  by  the  school  of  Sainte-Genevieve, 
whose  demure  maidens  do  no  violence  to  his  tranquil 
garden  in  which  they  stroll.  For  their  use  a  small 
pavilion  has  been  built  in  the  rear  of  the  garden,  but 
there  is  no  other  change.  The  two  Latin  lines,  in- 
scribed by  him  in  praise  of  his  rural  home  within  the 
town,  remain  on  an  inner  wall  of  his  cottage  at  your 
left  as  you  enter. 

Fifty  years  later  another  writer  found  a  quiet  home  in 
this  same  street.  Hidden  behind  the  heavy  outer  door 
of  No.  4,  a  roomy  mansion  built  in  1623  by  a  country- 
loving  subject  of  Louis  XIII.,  is  a  tablet  that  tells 
of  the  residence  here,  from  1781  to  1786,  of  Jacques- 
Henri  Bernardin  de  Saint-Pierre.  A  man  of  finer  qual- 
ities and  subtler  charm  than  Rollin,  his  work  is  of  no 
greater  weight  in  our  modern  eyes,  for  with  all  the  re- 
finement of  imagination  and  the  charm  of  description 
that  made  his  pen  "  a  magic  wand  "  to  Sainte-Beuve, 
his  emotional  optimism  grows  monotonous,  and  his 
exuberant  sensibility  flows  over  into  sentimentality. 
In  the  court  of  his  house  is  an  ancient  well,  and  behind 
lies  a  lovable  little  garden,  with  a  rare  iron  rail  and  gate- 
way.    This  traveller  in  many  lands,  this  adorer  of 


THE   STONES   OF  PARIS 


nature,  took  keen  delight  in  his  outlook,  from  his  third- 
story  windows,  over  this  garden  and  the  gardens  be- 
yond, to  the  Seine.  Here  in  1784  he  wrote  "  Studies 
from  Nature,"  an  instantaneous  success,  surpassed  only 
by  the  success  of  "  Paul  and  Virginia,"  published  in 
1786.  Possibly  no  book  has  ever  had  such  a  vogue. 
It  was  after  reading  this  work,  in  Italy,  that  the 
young  Bonaparte  wrote  to  Bernardin :  "  Your  pen  is 
a  painter's  brush."  Yet  his  reading  of  the  manu- 
script, before  its  publication,  in  the  salon  of  Madame 
Necker,  had  merely  bored  his  hearers,  and  the  humili- 
ated author  had  fled  from  their  yawns  to  this  con- 
genial solitude. 

The  narrow  street  has  suffered  slight  change  since 
those  days,  or  since  those  earlier  days,  when  Rene 
Descartes  found  a  temporary  home,  probably  on  the 
site  of  present  No.  14,  a  house  built  since  his  day 
here.  That  was  between  161 3,  when  he  first  came 
from  Brittany,  and  1617,  when  he  went  to  the  Neth- 
erlands. But  there  can  be  found  no  trace  of  the  stay 
in  this  street,  nor  of  the  secluded  home  in  the  Fau- 
bourg Saint-Germain,  of  the  founder  of  Cartesian 
philosophy — the  first  movement  in  the  direction  of 
modern  philosophy — the  father  of  modern  physiology, 
as  Huxley  claims,  and  of  modern  psychology,  as  its 
students  allow.  His  wandering  life,  in  search  always 
of  truth,  ended  in  1650,  at  the  court  of  Christina  of 
Sweden.  I  lis  body  was  brought  back  to  France  by 
the  ambassador  of  Louis  XIV.,  and  placed  in  the  old 
Church  of  Sainte-Genevieve.     In    1793,  the  Conven- 


Rene  Descartes. 

(From  the  portrait  by  Franz  Hals,  in  the  Musee  du  Louvre.) 


THE   SCHOLARS'    QUARTER 


tion  decreed  its  removal  to  the  recently  completed  and 
secularized  Pantheon,  and  from  there  it  was  carried 
for  safe  keeping',  along  with  so  many  others,  to  the 
Museum  of  French  Monuments.  In  1819  it  found 
final  resting-place  in  Saint-Germain-des-Pres,  in  the 
third  chapel  on  the  southern  side  of  the  choir.  The 
man  himself  lives  for  us  on  the  wonderful  canvas  of 
Franz  Flals  in  the  gallery  of  the  Louvre. 

The  Paris  of  the  north  bank  has  its  slope,  that  looks 
across  the  Seine  to  this  southern  slope,  and  that  has 
come  to  be  its  Scholarly  Quarter.  The  high  land  away 
behind  the  lowlands  stretching  along  the  northern  bank 
was  taken  early  by  the  Romans  for  their  villas,  and 
then  by  nobles  for  their  chateaux,  and  then  by  the  bour- 
geoisie for  their  cottages.  As  la  Villc  grew,  its  citizens 
gave  all  their  thought  to  honest  industry  and  to  the  hon- 
est struggle  for  personal  and  municipal  rights,  so  that 
none  was  left  for  literature.  When  its  time  came,  the 
town  had  spread  up  and  over  these  northern  heights, 
and  men  of  letters  and  of  the  arts  were  attracted  by 
their  open  spaces  and  ample  outlook.  So  large  a  col- 
ony of  these  workers  had  settled  there,  early  in  the 
nineteenth  century,  that  some  among  them  gave  to 
their  hill-side  the  name  of  "  la  Nouvelle  Athcnes."  Its 
vogue  has  gone  on  growing,  and  it  is  crowded  with 
the  memories  of  dead  pen-workers,  and  with  the  pres- 
ence of  living  pen-workers.  So,  too,  are  the  suburbs 
toward  the  west,  and  this  Scholars'  Quarter  on  the 
southern  bank,  which  is  barely  touched  on  in  this 
book,  given  so  greatly  as  it  is  to  history,  archceology, 


THE   STONES    OF  PARIS 


architecture,  and  other  arts.  All  this  wide-spread  dis- 
trict awaits  the  diligent  pen  that  has  given  us  "  The 
Literary  Landmarks  of  London,"  to  give  us,  as  com- 
pletely and  accurately,  "  The  Literary  Landmarks  of 
Paris." 


MOLIERE  AND   HIS   FRIENDS 


MOLIERE   AND   HIS   FRIENDS 

In  the  early  years  of  the  seventeenth  century  there 
stood  a  low,  wide,  timbered  house  on  the  eastern  cor- 
ner of  Rues  Saint-Honore  and  des  Vieilles-Etuves.  To 
the  dwellers  in  that  crowded  quarter  of  the  Halles  it 
was  known  as  "  la  Maison  des  Singes,"  because  of  the 
carved  wooden  tree  on  its  angle,  in  the  branches  of 
which  wooden  monkeys  shook  down  wooden  fruit  to 
an  old  wooden  monkey  at  its  foot.  This  house,  that 
dated  from  the  thirteenth  century  surely,  and  that  may 
have  been  a  part  of  Queen  Blanche's  Paris,  was  torn 
down  only  in  1800,  and  a  slice  of  its  site  has  been  cut 
off  by  Rue  Sauval,  the  widened  and  renamed  Rue  des 
Vieilles-Etuves.  The  modern  building  on  that  corner, 
numbered  92  Rue  Saint-Honore,  is  so  narrow  as  to 
have  only  one  window  on  each  of  its  three  floors  fac- 
ing that  street.  Around  the  first  story,  above  the 
butcher's  shop  on  the  entrance  floor,  runs  a  balcony 
with  great  gilt  letters  on  its  rail,  that  read  "  Maison  dc 
Molicre."  High  up  on  its  front  wall  is  a  small  tablet, 
whose  legend,  deciphered  with  difficulty  from  the 
street,  claims  this  spot  for  the  birthplace  of  Moliere. 
This  is  a  veracious  record.  The  exact  date  of  the 
birth  of  the  eldest  son  of  Jacques  Poquelin  and  Marie 

105 


io6  THE   STO.YES    OF  PARIS 


Cresse,  his  wife,  is  unknown,  but  it  was  presumably 
very  early  in  January,  1622,  for,  on  the  fifteenth  of 
that  month,  the  baby  was  baptized  "  Jean  Poquelin," 
in  his  father's  parish  church  of  Saint-Eustache — 
a  new  church  not  quite  completed  then.  The  name 
"  Baptiste  "  was,  seemingly,  added  a  little  later  by  his 
parents. 

On  this  corner  the  boy  lived  for  eleven  years ;  here 
his  mother  died,  ten  years  after  his  birth,  and  here 
his  father  soon  married  again ;  he  removed,  in  1633,  to 
a  house  he  had  inherited,  the  ground  floor  of  which  he 
made  his  shop  of  upholstery  and  of  similar  stuffs,  the 
family  residing  above.  It  was  No.  3  Rue  de  la  Ton- 
nellerie,  under  the  pillars  of  the  Halles,  possibly,  but 
not  certainly,  on  the  site  of  the  present  No.  31  Rue  du- 
Pont-Neuf.  In  a  niche,  cut  in  the  front  wall  of  this 
modern  building,  has  been  placed  a  bust  of  Moliere 
and  an  inscription  asserting  that  this  was  his  birth- 
spot,  a  local  legend  that  harms  no  one,  and  comforts  at 
least  the  locataire. 

Hereabout,  certainly,  the  boy  played,  running  for- 
ward and  back  across  the  market.  On  its  northern 
side,  near  the  public  pillory,  was  another  house  owned 
by  his  father,  on  the  old  corner  of  Rue  de  la  Reale, 
and  its  site  is  now  covered  by  the  pavement  of  modern 
Rue  Rambuteau.  It  is  pleasant  to  picture  the  lad  in 
this  ancient  quarter,  as  we  walk  through  those  few  of 
its  streets  unchanged  to  this  day,  notably  that  bit  of 
Rue  de  la  Ferronerie,  so  narrow  that  it  blocked  the 
carriage  of  Henri  IV.,  a  few  years  before,  and  brought 


MOLIERE   AND  HIS  FRIENDS  107 

him  within  easy  reach  of  the  knife  of  Ravaillac  as  he 
sprang  on  the  wheel. 

Franqois  Coppee,  not  yet  an  old  man,  readily  re- 
calls the  square  squat  columns  of  the  old  Halles,  and, 
all  about,  the  solid  houses  supported  by  pillars  like 
the  arcades  of  Place  des  Vosges ;  all  just  as  when 
young  Poquelin  played  about  them.  Plays,  as  well  as 
play,  already  attracted  him ;  he  loved  to  look  at  the 
marionettes  and  the  queer  side-shows  of  the  outdoor 
fairs  held  about  the  Halles;  and  his  grandfather, 
Louis  Cresse,  an  ardent  playgoer,  often  took  him  to 
laugh  at  the  funny  fellows  who  frolicked  on  the  tres- 
tles of  the  Pont-Neuf,  and  at  the  rollicking  farces  in 
the  Theatre  du  Marais.  No  doubt  he  saw,  too,  the 
tragedies  of  the  theatre  of  the  Hotel  de  Bourgogne, 
and  this  observant  boy  may  well  have  anticipated  the 
younger  Crebillon's  opinion,  that  French  tragedy  of 
that  day  was  the  most  absolute  farce  yet  invented  by 
the  human  mind.  For  this  was  a  little  while  before 
the  coming  of  Corneille  with  true  tragedy. 

This  son  of  the  King's  upholsterer  cared  nothing 
for  his  father's  trade,  and  not  much  for  books.  He 
learned,  early,  that  his  eyes  were  meant  for  seeing, 
and  he  not  only  saw  everything,  but  he  remembered 
and  reflected  ;  showing  signs  already  of  that  bent  which 
gave  warrant,  in  later  life,  for  Boileau's  epithet, 
"  Moliere  the  Contemplator." 

He  was  sent,  in  1636,  being  then  fourteen  years  old, 
to  the  College  de  Clermont,  named  a  little  later,  and 
still  named,  Lycee  Louis-le-Grand.      Rebuilt  during 


108  THE   STONES   OF  PARIS 

the  Second  Empire,  it  stands  on  its  old  site  behind  the 
College  dc  France,  in  widened  Rue  Saint-Jacques. 
Here,  during  his  course  of  five  years,  he  was  suffi- 
ciently diligent  in  such  studies  as  happened  to  please 
him ;  and  was  prominent  in  the  plays,  acted  by  the 
scholars  at  each  prize-giving.  He  made  many  friend- 
ships with  boys  who  became  famous  men ;  with  one, 
just  leaving  school  as  he  came,  who  especially  stood 
his  friend  in  after  life — the  youthful  Prince  de  Conti, 
younger  brother  of  the  great  Conde.  And  this  elder 
brother  became,  years  after,  the  friend  and  protector 
of  the  young  actor-playwright,  just  as  he  was  of  some 
others  of  that  famous  group,  Racine,  La  Fontaine, 
Boileau.  All  these,  along  with  all  men  eminent  in  any 
way,  were  welcomed  to  his  grand  seat  at  Chantilly,  and 
were  frequent  guests  at  his  great  town-house,  whose 
salon  was  a  rival  to  that  of  the  Hotel  de  Rambouillet. 
His  mansion,  with  its  grounds,  occupied  the  whole  of 
that  triangular  space  bounded  now  by  Rues  de  Vau- 
girard,  de  Conde,  and  Monsieur-le-Prince.  At  the 
northern  point  of  that  triangle,  nearly  on  the  ground 
now  covered  by  the  Second  Theatre  Francais,  the 
Odeon,  stood  the  prince's  private  theatre;  wherein 
Moliere,  by  invitation,  played  the  roles  of  author, 
actor,  manager.  Moliere's  customary  role  in  this  great 
house  was  that  of  friend  of  the  host,  who  wrote  to 
him  :  "  Come  to  me  at  any  hour  you  please;  you  have 
but  to  announce  your  name;  you  visit  can  never  be 
ill-timed." 

Jean-Baptiste  Poquelin  betook  himself  early  to  the 


MOLIERE   AND   HIS   FRIENDS 


109 


boards  for  which  he  was  born,  from  which  he  could 
not  be  kept  by  his  course  at  college  or  at  law.  He 
studied  law  fitfully  for  a  while ;  sufficiently,  withal,  to 
lay  up  a  stock  of  legal  technicalities  and  procedure, 
which  he  employed  with  precision  in  many  of  his 
plays.  So,  too,  he  took  in,  no  doubt  unconsciously, 
details  of  his  father's  business ;  and  his  references,  in 
his  stage-talk,  to  hangings,  furniture,  and  costumes, 
are  frequent  and  exact. 

The  father,  unable  to  journey  with  the  King  to  Nar- 
bonne  in  the  spring  of  1642,  as  his  official  duties  de- 
manded, had  his  son  appointed  to  the  place,  and  the 
young  man,  accompanying  the  court  and  playing  ta- 
pissicr  on  this  journey,  saw,  it  is  said,  the  execution 
of  Cinq-Mars  and  de  Thou.  In  the  provinces  at  this 
time,  or  it  may  have  been  in  Paris  earlier,  he  met, 
became  intimate  with,  and  soon  after  joined,  a  troupe 
of  strolling  players,  made  up  of  Joseph  Bejart,  his 
two  sisters  Madeleine  and  Genevieve,  and  other  young 
Parisians. 

This  troupe  was  touring  in  Languedoc  early  in  1642, 
and  was  rather  strong  in  its  talent  and  fortunate  in 
its  takings ;  in  no  way  akin  to  that  shabby  set  of  barn- 
stormers satirized  by  Scarron  in  his  "  Roman  Comique." 
We  cannot  fix  the  date  of  Poquelin's  debut  in  the  com- 
pany, but  we  know  that — with  the  unhallowed  ambi- 
tion of  the  born  and  predestined  comedian — he  began 
in  tragedy,  and  that  he  was  greeted  by  his  rural  audi- 
ences with  hootings,  punctuated  by  the  pelting  of  fried 
potatoes,  then  sold  at  the  theatre  door.    And  we  know 


THE   STONES   OF  PARIS 


that  the  troupe  came  north  to  Rouen  in  the  autumn  of 
1643,  playing  a  night  or  two  in  the  natal  town  of  Cor- 
neille.  It  is  a  plausible  and  a  pleasing  fancy  that  sees 
the  glory  of  French  dramatic  art  of  that  day,  at  home 
on  a  visit  to  his  mother,  receiving  free  tickets  for  the 
show,  with  the  respects  of  the  young  recruit  to  the 
stage,  the  glory  of  French  dramatic  art  at  no  distant 
day.  The  troupe  had  gone  to  Rouen  and  to  other  pro- 
vincial towns  only  while  awaiting  the  construction  of 
their  theatre  in  the  capital,  contracted  for  during  the 
summer.  At  last,  on  the  evening  of  December  31, 
1643,  ^  raised  its  first  curtain  to  the  Parisian  public, 
under  the  brave,  or  the  bumptious,  title  of  "  l'lllustre 
Theatre." 

To  trace,  from  his  first  step  on  Paris  boards,  the" 
successive  sites  of  Moliere's  theatres  is  a  delightful 
task,  in  natural  continuation  of  that  begun  in  an  earlier 
chapter,  where  those  theatres  in  existence  before  his 
time  were  pointed  out.  In  England,  we  know,  stage- 
players  were  "  strollers  and  vagabonds  "  by  statute ; 
not  allowed  to  play  within  London's  walls.  All  their 
early  theatres  were  outside  the  City  limits.  The  Globe, 
the  summer  theatre  of  Shakespeare  and  his  "  fel- 
lows " — "  whereon  was  prepared  scaffolds  for  behold- 
ers to  stand  upon  " — was  across  the  Thames,  on  Bank- 
side,  Southwark.  So,  too,  were  the  Hope,  the  Rose, 
the  Swan.  The  Curtain  was  in  Shoreditch,  Davenant's 
theatre  in  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields,  and  the  Blackfriars 
theatre  on  Ludgate  Hill,  just  without  the  old  wall. 

The  early  playhouses  of  Paris  were  built — but  for 


MOLIERE   AND   HIS  FRIENDS 


another  reason — on  the  outer  side  of  the  town  wall  of 
Philippe-Auguste,  and  their  seemingly  unaccountable 
situations  are  easily  accounted  for  by  following  on 
either  bank  the  course  of  that  wall,  already  plainly 
mapped  out  in  preceding  pages. 

This  magnificent  wall  of  a  magnificent  monarch  had 
lost  much  of  its  old  significance  for  defence  with  the 
coming  of  gunpowder,  and  a  new  use  was  found  for 
it,  in  gentler  games  than  war,  as  the  town  outgrew  its 
encircling  limits.  In  the  Middle  Ages,  tennis — the 
oldest  ball-game  known — was  a  favorite  sport  of  kings 
and  of  those  about  them.  It  was  called  le  jcu  de  paume, 
being  played  with  the  hand  until  the  invention  of  the 
racket ;  the  players  standing  in  the  ditch  outside  the 
wall,  against  which  the  ball  was  thrown.  Beyond  the 
ditch  was  built  the  court  for  onlookers,  the  common 
folk  standing  on  its  floor,  their  betters  seated  in  the 
gallery.  When  the  game  lost  its  vogue,  these  courts 
were  easily  and  cheaply  turned  into  the  rude  theatres 
of  that  day,  with  abundant  space  for  actors  and  spec- 
tators ;  those  of  low  degree  crowding  on  foot  in  the 
body  of  the  building,  those  who  paid  a  little  more 
seated  in  the  galleries,  those  of  high  degree  on  stools 
and  benches  at  the  side  of  the  stage,  and  even  on  the 
stage  itself.  This  encroachment  on  the  stage,  within 
sight  of  the  audience,  grew  to  such  an  abuse  that  it 
was  done  away  with  in  1759,  and  the  scene  was  left 
solely  to  the  players. 

Where  a  tablet  is  let  into  the  wall  of  the  present 
Nos.  12  and  14  Rue  Mazarine,  then  named  the  Fosse- 


TJ/E    STONES    OF   PARIS 


de-Nesle — the  ancient  onter  ditch  of  the  old  wall — 
a  roomy  playhouse  had  been  contrived  from  a  former 
tennis-court  owned  by  Arnold  Mestayer,  a  solid  citi- 
zen of  the  town,  captain  of  the  Hundred  Musketeers 
of  Henri  IV.'s  day.  This  was  the  theatre  taken  by  the 
Bejart  troupe  and  named  "  l'lllustre  Theatre."  Here 
young  Poquelin  made  his  first  bow  to  Paris.  The 
building  stood  on  the  sites  of  the  present  Nos.  10,  12, 
and  14  Rue  Mazarine,  its  only  entrance  for  spectators 
reached  by  an  alley  that  ran  along  the  line  between 
Nos.  14  and  16,  and  so  through  to  Rue  de  Seine,  to 
where  the  buildings  extended  over  the  ground  now 
covered  by  Nos.  11  and  13.  These  latter  houses  are 
claimed  by  local  legend  for  Moliere's  residence,  and  it 
may  well  be  that  the  rear  part  of  the  theatre  served  as 
sleeping-quarters  for  the  troupe.  The  interior  of  No. 
11  is  of  very  ancient  construction,  its  front  being  of 
later  date.  In  the  wall  between  it  and  No.  9 — a  low 
wooden  structure,  possibly  a  portion  of  the  original 
fabric — is  hidden  the  well  that  served  first  the  tennis- 
players  and  then  the  stage-players.  There  is  no  longer 
any  communication  between  these  houses  in  Rue  de 
Seine  and  those  in  Rue  Mazarine.  These  latter  were 
built  in  1830,  when  the  street  was  widened,  that  por- 
tion of  the  old  theatre  having  been  demolished  a  few 
years  earlier. 

It  was  in  June,  1644,  tnat  *-nc  name  Moliere  first 
appears,  signed — it  is  his  earliest  signature  in  ex- 
istence— among  the  rest  of  the  company,  to  a  con- 
tract with  a  dancing  man  for  the  theatre.     How  he 


MO  LI  ERE   AND  HIS  FRIENDS  113 

came  to  select  this  name  is  not  known,  nor  was  it 
known  to  any  of  his  young  comrades ;  for  he  always 
refused  to  give  his  reasons.  What  is  known,  is  that 
it  was  a  name  of  weight  even  then,  proving  that,  with- 
in the  first  six  months  of  the  theatre's  existence,  his 
business  ability  had  made  him  its  controlling  spirit. 
But  his  abilities  as  manager  and  as  actor  could  not 
bring  success  to  the  theatre.  Foreign  and  civil  wars 
made  the  State  poor;  wide-spread  financial  troubles 
made  the  people  poor;  that  cruelly  cold  winter  froze 
out  the  public.  "  Nul  animal  vivant  n'entra  dans  iwtre 
salle,"  are  the  bitterly  true  words,  put  into  the  mouth 
of  the  young  actor-manager,  by  an  unknown  writer  of 
a  scurrilous  verse. 

He  and  the  troupe  were  liberated  from  their  lease 
within  the  year,  and,  early  in  1645,  they  migrated  over 
the  river  to  the  Jen  de  Painne  dc  la  Croix-Noire.  On 
either  end  of  the  long,  low  building  at  No.  32  Quai  des 
Celestins  is  a  tablet ;  the  western  one  showing  where 
stood  the  Tour  Barbeau  that  ended  the  wall  on  this 
river-bank ;  that  at  the  eastern  end  marking  the  site 
of  this  theatre,  just  without  the  wall.  It  had  an  en- 
trance on  the  quay-front  for  the  boatmen  and  other 
water-side  patrons,  another  in  Rue  des  Barres  for  its 
patrons  coming  by  coach.  Moliere  lodged  in  the  house 
— probably  a  portion  of  the  theatre — at  the  corner  of 
the  quay  and  of  Rue  des  Jardins-Saint-Paul — that 
country  lane  wherein  had  died  Rabelais,  nearly  a  cen- 
tury earlier.  Little  Rue  des  Barres,  already  seen  tak- 
ing its  name  from  the  barred  or  striped  gowns  of  the 
Vol.  I.— 8 


114 


THE   STONES   OF  PARIS 


Stage  Door  of  Mohere's  Second  Theatre  in  Paris. 


monks  who  settled  there,  is  now  Rue  de  l'Ave-Maria, 
and  at  its  number  15  you  will  find  the  stage  entrance 
of  this  theatre,  hardly  changed  since  it  was  first  trodden 
by  the  players  from  over  the  river.  There  is  the  low 
and   narrow   door,   one   of  its   jambs   bent    with   the 


MO  LI  EKE   AND   HIS  FRIENDS  115 


weight  of  the  more  modern  structure  above,  and  be- 
yond is  the  short  alleyway,  equally  narrow,  by  which 
they  passed  to  the  stage.  At  its  inner  end,  where  it 
opens  into  a  small  court,  is  the  stone  rim  of  a  well,  half 
hidden  in  the  wall.  It  is  the  well  provided  in  each 
tennis-court  for  the  players,  and  handed  on,  with  the 
court  itself,  for  the  use  of  the  actors.  Moliere  has 
leaned  over  this  well-curb  to  wash  away  his  rouge 
and  wrinkles.  It  is  an  indisputable  and  attractive  wit- 
ness of  his  early  days.  In  Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, 
where  he  knelt  at  the  altar  for  his  marriage  and  stood 
at  the  font  with  his  son ;  in  Saint-Eustache,  where  he 
carried  his  second  son  for  baptism ;  in  Saint-Roch, 
where  he  wrote  his  name  as  godfather  of  a  friend's 
daughter — within  these  vast  and  dim  aisles,  his  bodily 
presence  is  vaguely  shadowed  forth ;  here  we  can 
touch  the  man. 

What  sort  of  plays  were  presented  at  this  house  we 
do  not  know,  the  only  record  that  remains  referring 
to  the  production  of  "  Artaxerxes  "  by  one  Mignon. 
Whatever  they  played,  neither  the  rough  men  of  the 
quay  and  of  Port  Saint-Paul,  nor  the  bourgeoisie  of 
the  Marais,  nor  the  fine  folk  of  Place  Royale,  crowded 
into  the  new  theatre. 

During  this  disastrous  season,  the  troupe  received 
royal  commands  to  play  at  Fontainebleau  before  the 
King  and  court,  and  later,  by  invitation  of  the  Due  de 
l'Eperon,  at  his  splendid  mansion  in  Rue  de  la  Pla- 
triere — that  mansion  in  which  lived  and  died  La  Fon- 
taine, half  a  century  later.     Neither  these  fashionable 


ri6  THE   STONES   OE  PARIS 

flights,  nor  the  royal  and  noble  patronage  accorded  to 
the  troupe,  could  save  it  from  failure  and  final  bank- 
ruptcy. Moliere,  the  responsible  manager,  was  ar- 
rested for  the  theatre's  poor  little  debt  for  candles  and 
lights.  He  was  locked  up  for  a  night  or  two  in  the 
dismal  prison  of  the  Grand  Chatelet,  once  the  fortress 
of  Louis  "  le  Gros,"  torn  down  only  in  1802,  on  whose 
site  now  sparkles  the  fountain  of  Place  du  Chatelet. 
From  this  lock-up,  having  petitioned  for  release  to  M. 
d'Aubray,  Civil  Lieutenant  of  the  town  and  father  of 
the  Marquise  de  Brinvilliers,  Moliere  was  released  by 
the  quickly  tendered  purse  of  Leonard  Aubry,  "  Royal 
Paver  and  Street  Sweeper,"  who,  when  filling  in  the 
Fosse-de-Nesle  and  laying  out  over  it  the  present  Rue 
Mazarine  a  year  before,  had  made  fast  friends  with 
the  young  actor.  "  For  his  good  service  in  ransom- 
ing the  said  Poquelin,"  the  entire  troupe  bound  itself 
to  make  Aubry  whole  for  his  debt. 

Now  they  cross  the  river  again  to  their  former  Fau- 
bourg Saint-Germain,  taking  for  their  house  the  Jcu 
dc  Paume  dc  la  Croix-Blanche,  outside  the  wall  on 
the  south  side  of  the  present  Rue  de  Buci,  between 
the  carrcfour  at  its  eastern  end  and  Rue  Gregoire-de- 
Tours.  Here  they  played,  still  playing  against  dis- 
aster, from  the  end  of  1645  to  the  end  of  1646,  and 
then  they  fled  from  Paris,  fairly  beaten,  and  betook 
themselves  to  the  southern  provinces.  We  cannot 
follow  their  wanderings,  nor  record  their  ups  and 
downs,  during  the  twelve  years  of  their  absence.  In 
the  old  play-bills  we  find  the  names  of  Bejart  aine  and 


MO  LI  ERE   AND  HIS  FRIENDS  117 

of  his  brother  Louis,  of  their  sisters  Madeleine  and 
Genevieve.  Toward  the  end  of  their  touring  they 
added  to  the  family,  though  not  to  the  boards,  Ar- 
mande,  who  had  been  brought  up  in  Languedoc,  and 
who  was  claimed  by  them  to  be  their  very  young  sis- 
ter, and  by  others  to  be  the  unacknowledged  daughter 
of  Madeleine. 

Moliere,  the  leader  and  manager  of  the  troupe  from 
the  day  they  started,  was  then  only  twenty-five  years 
of  age,  not  yet  owning  or  knowing  his  full  powers. 
These  he  gained  during  that  twelve  years'  hard  school- 
ing and  rude  apprenticeship,  so  that  he  came  back  to 
the  capital,  in  1658,  master  of  his  craft,  with  a  load  of 
literary  luggage  such  as  no  French  tourist  has  carried, 
before  or  since. 

Under  princely  patronage,  won  in  the  provinces,  his 
troupe  appeared  before  Louis  XIV.,  the  Queen-Mother, 
and  the  entire  court,  on  October  24,  1658,  in  a  theatre 
improvised  in  the  Salle  des  Gardes  of  the  old  Louvre, 
now  known  as  the  Salle  des  Caryatides.  The  pieces 
on  that  opening  night  were  Corneille's  "  Nicomede  " 
and  the  manager's  "  Le  Docteur  Amoureux."  In  No- 
vember, the  "  troupe  de  Monsieur  " — that  title  per- 
mitted by  the  King's  brother — was  given  possession 
of  the  theatre  in  the  palace  of  the  Petit-Bourbon.  It 
stood  between  the  old  Louvre,  with  which  it  was  con- 
nected by  a  long  gallery,  and  the  Church  of  Saint- 
Germain-l'Auxerrois,  and  was  torn  down  in  1660  to 
make  place  for  the  new  colonnade  that  forms  the  pres- 
ent eastern  face  of  the  Louvre.    The  dainty  Jardin  de 


US  THE    STONES    OE  PARIS 

I'lnfante  covers  the  site  of  the  stage,  just  at  the  corner 
of  the  Egyptian  Gallery. 

In  this  hall  Moliere's  company  played  for  two  years, 
on  alternate  nights  with  the  Italian  comedians,  pre- 
senting, along  with  old  standard  French  pieces — for 
authors  in  vogue  held  aloof — his  provincial  successes, 
as  well  as  new  plays  and  ballets  invented  by  him  for 
the  delectation  of  the  Grand  Monarque.  From  this 
time  his  remaining  fifteen  years  of  life  were  filled  with 
work ;  his  brain  and  his  pen  were  relentlessly  em- 
ployed ;  honors  and  wealth  came  plentifully  to  him, 
happiness  hardly  at  all. 

While  at  this  theatre  Meniere  lived  just  around  the 
corner  on  Quai  de  l'Ecole,  now  Quai  du  Louvre,  in 
a  house  that  was  torn  away  in  1854  for  the  widening 
of  present  Rue  du  Louvre.  Many  of  the  buildings 
left  on  the  quay  are  of  the  date  and  appearance  of  this, 
his  last  bachelor  home. 

Driven  from  the  Petit-Bourbon  by  its  hurried  demo- 
lition in  1660,  Moliere  was  granted  the  use  and  the 
privileges  of  the  Salle  of  the  former  Palais-Cardinal, 
partly  gone  to  ruin  and  needing  large  expenditure  to 
make  it  good.  It  had  been  arranged  by  Richelieu, 
just  before  his  death,  for  the  presentation  of  his 
"  Mirame."  For  the  great  cardinal  and  great  minister 
thought  that  he  was  a  great  dramatist  too,  and  in  his 
vanity  saw  himself  the  centre  of  the  mimic  stage,  as 
he  really  was  of  the  world-stage  he  managed.  He  is 
made  by  Bulwer  to  say,  with  historic  truth:  "Of  my 
ministry  1  am  not  vain;   but  of  mv  muse,  I  own  it." 


MO  LI  ERE   AND   HIS   FRIENDS  ng 

His  theatre  in  his  residence — willed  at  his  death  to 
the  King-,  and  thenceforward  known  as  the  Palais- 
Royal — was  therefore  the  only  structure  in  Paris  de- 
signed especially  and  solely  for  playhouse  purposes. 
It  stood  on  the  western  corner  of  Rues  Saint-Honore 
and  de  Valois,  as  a  tablet  there  tells  us.  During  the 
repairs  Moliere  took  his  troupe  to  various  chateaux 
about  Paris,  returning  to  open  this  theatre  on  January 
20,  1661.  This  removal  was  the  last  he  made,  and 
this  house  was  the  scene  of  his  most  striking  successes. 

It  is  not  out  of  place  here  to  follow  his  troupe  for 
a  while  after  his  death,  and  so  complete  our  record  of 
those  early  theatres.  His  widow,  succeeding  to  the 
control  of  the  company,  was,  within  three  months, 
compelled  to  give  up  the  Cardinal's  house  to  Lulli, 
the  most  popular  musician  of  that  day,  and  a  scheming 
fellow  withal.  The  unscrupulous  Florentine  induced 
the  King  to  grant  him  this  Salle  des  Spectacles  for 
the  production  of  his  music.  The  opera  held  the  house 
until  fire  destroyed  it  in  1763,  when  a  new  "  Academy 
of  Music  "  was  constructed  on  the  eastern  corner  of 
the  same  streets;  this,  also,  was  burned  in  1781. 
Above  the  tablet  recording  these  dates  on  this  eastern- 
corner  wall  is  a  fine  old  sun-dial,  such  as  is  rarely  seen 
in  Paris,  and  seldom  noticed  now. 

The  widow  Moliere,  being  dispossessed,  found  a 
theatre  in  Rue  Mazarine,  just  beyond  her  husband's 
first  theatre,  "  in  the  Tennis-Court  where  hangs  a  Bot- 
tle for  a  Sign."  For  it  had  been  the  Jen  de  Paunie  de 
la  Bouteille,  and  now  became  the  Theatre  Guenegaud, 


THE   STONES   OF  PARTS 


being  exactly  opposite  the  end  of  that  street.  Within 
the  structure  at  No.  42  Rue  Mazarine  may  be  seen  the 
heavy  beams  of  the  front  portion  of  its  fabric,  where 
was  the  entrance  for  the  public.  The  space  behind, 
now  used  for  a  workshop,  with  huge  pillars  around 
its  four  sides,  served  for  the  audience,  and  the  stage 
was  built  farther  beyond.  On  the  court  of  this  house, 
and  on  the  contiguous  court  of  No.  43  Rue  de  Seine, 
stood  a  large  building,  whose  first  floor  was  taken  by 
Madame  Moliere,  and  in  its  rear  wall  she  cut  a  door 
to  give  access  to  her  stage.  The  entrance  for  the 
performers  was  in  the  little  Passage  du  Pont-Neuf, 
and  under  it  there  are  remains  of  the  foundations  of  the 
theatre.  Here,  in  May,  1677,  the  widow  took  the  name 
of  Madame  Guerin  on  her  marriage  with  a  comedian 
of  her  company.  And  we  feel  as  little  regret  as  she 
seems  to  have  felt  for  her  loss  of  an  illustrious  name. 
In  the  words  of  a  derisive  verse  of  the  time : 

" Elle  avoit  un  mari  <T esprit,  quelle  aimoit peu  ; 
Kile  prend  un  de  chair,  git' elle  aitne  davantage." 

This  was  the  first  theatre  to  present  to  the  general 
public  "  lyric  dramas  set  to  music,"  brought  first  to 
France  by  Mazarin  for  his  private  stage  in  the  small 
hall  of  the  Palais-Royal,  where  they  were  presented 
as  "  Comedies  en  Musique,  avee  machines  a  la  mode 
d'ltalic."  They  bored  everybody,  the  fashion  for 
opera  not  yet  being  set.  On  October  21,  1680,  by 
letters-patent  from  royalty,  the  troupe  of  the  Theatre 
Guenegaud  was  united  to  that  of  the  Hotel  de  Bour- 


MO  LI  ERE   AND  HIS  FRIENDS 


gogne,  and  to  the  combined  companies  was  granted 
the  name  of  Comedie  Franchise,  the  first  assump- 
tion of  that  now  time-honored  title.  The  theatre  be- 
came so  successful  that  the  Jansenists  in  the  College 
Mazarin — the  present  Institute — made  an  uproar  be- 
cause they  were  annoyed  by  the  traffic  and  the  turmoil 
in  the  narrow  street,  and  succeeded  in  driving  away 
the  playhouse  in  1688.  After 
a  long  search,  the  Comedie 
Franqaise  found  new  quarters 
in  the  Jcu  de  Paume  de 
I'Etoilc,  built  along  the  outer 
edge  of  the  street  made  over 
the  ditch  of  the  wall,  named 
Rue  des  Fosses-Saint-Ger- 
main, now  Rue  de  l'Ancienne- 
Comedie.  At  its  present  No.  14,  set  in  the  original 
front  wall  of  the  theatre,  between  the  second  and  third 
stories,  a  tablet  marks  the  site ;  above  it  is  a  bas-relief, 
showing  a  Minerva  reclining  on  a  slab.  She  traces  on 
paper,  with  her  right  hand,  that  which  is  reflected  in 
the  mirror  of  Truth,  held  in  her  left  hand.  At  the 
rear  of  the  court  stands  the  old  fabric  that  held  the 
stage.  Since  those  boards  were  removed  to  other 
walls — the  story  shall  be  told  in  a  later  chapter — the 
building  has  had  various  usages.  It  now  serves  as  a 
storehouse  for  wall-paper.  During  the  Empire  it  was 
taken  for  his  studio  by  the  artist  Antoine-Jean  Gros, 
the  successor  of  David  and  the  forerunner  of  Geri- 
cault ;  so  standing  for  the  transition  from  the  Classic 


THE   STOXES    OE   EAR1S 


to  the  Romantic  school.  It  is  not  true  that  he  killed 
himself  in  this  studio.  He  went  out  from  it,  when 
maddened  by  the  art  critics,  and  drowned  himself  in 
the  Seine  in  the  summer  of  1835. 

It  was  a  great  bill  with  which  the  Comedie  Fran- 
caise  opened  this  house  on  the  night  of  April  18,  1689, 
for  it  was  made  up  of  two  masterpieces,  Racine's 
"  Phedre  "  and  Moliere's  "  Le  Medecin  Malgre  Lui." 
A  vast  and  enthusiastic  audience  thronged,  with  joy- 
ous clatter,  through  narrow  Rues  Mazarine  and  Dau- 
phine,  coming  from  the  river.  The  Cafe  Procope,  re- 
cently opened  just  opposite  the  theatre,  was  crowded 
after  the  performance,  the  drinkers  of  coffee  not  quite 
sure  that  they  liked  the  new  beverage.  And  so,  at 
the  top  of  their  triumphs,  we  leave  the  players  with 
whom  we  have  vagabondized  so  long  and  so  sympa- 
thetically. 

Moliere,  at  the  height  of  his  career,  had  married 
Armande  Bejart,  he  being  forty  years  of  age,  she 
"  aged  twenty  years  or  thereabout,"  in  the  words  of 
the  marriage  contract,  signed  January  23,  1662.  No 
one  knows  now,  very  few  knew  then,  whether  the  bride 
was  the  sister  or  the  daughter  of  Madeleine  Bejart, 
Moliere's  friend  and  comrade  for  many  years,  who 
doubled  her  role  of  versatile  actress  with  that  of  provi- 
dent cashier  of  the  company.  She  was  devoted  to 
Armande,  whom  she  had  taken  to  her  home  from  the 
girl's  early  schooling  in  Languedoc,  and  over  whom 
she  watched  in  the  coulisses.  She  fought  against  the 
marriage,  which  she  saw  was  a  mistake,  finally  ac- 


MO  LI  ERE   AMD   HIS  FRIENDS  123 

cepted  it,  and  at  her  own  death  in   1672  left  all  her 
handsome  savings  to  the  wife  of  Moliere. 

In  the  cast  of  the  "  Ecole  des  Maris,"  first  produced 
in  1661,  appears  the  name  of  Armande  Bejart,  and, 
three  months  after  the  marriage,  "  Mile.  Moliere  " — 
so  were  known  the  wives  of  the  bourgeoisie,  "  Ma- 
dame "  being  reserved  for  grandcs-damcs — played  the 
small  part  of  Elise  put  for  her  by  the  author  into  his 
"  Critique  de  l'Ecole  des  Femmes."  Henceforward 
she  was  registered  as  one  of  the  troupe,  the  manager 
receiving  two  portions  of  the  receipts  for  his  and  her 
united  shares,  She  was  a  pleasing  actress,  never  more 
than  mediocre,  except  in  those  parts,  in  his  own  plays, 
fitted  to  her  and  drilled  into  her  by  her  husband.  She 
had  an  attractive  presence  on  the  boards,  without  much 
beauty,  without  any  brains.  Her  voice  was  exquisite, 
opulent  in  tones  that  seemed  to  suggest  the  heart  she 
did  not  own.  For  she  was  born  with  an  endowment 
of  adroit  coquetry,  and  she  developed  her  gift.  She 
was  flighty  and  frivolous,  evasive  and  obstinate,  fond 
of  pleasures  not  always  innocent.  Her  spendthrift 
ways  hurt  Moliere's  thrifty  spirit,  her  coquetry  hurt 
his  love,  her  caprices  hurt  his  honor.  His  infatuation, 
a  madness  closely  allied  to  his  genius,  brought  to  him 
a  fleeting  happiness,  followed  by  almost  unbroken  tor- 
ments of  love,  jealousy,  forgiveness.  In  his  home  he 
found  none  of  the  rest  nor  comfort  nor  sympathy  so 
much  needed,  after  his  prodigious  work  in  composing, 
drill-work  in  rehearsing,  and  public  work  in  perform- 
ing at  his  theatre,  and  at  Versailles  and  Fontainebleau. 


124  THE    STONES    OF   PARIS 

He  got  no  consolation  from  his  wife  for  the  sneers  of 
venomous  rivals,  enraged  by  his  supremacy,  and  for 
the  stabs  of  the  great  world,  eager  to  avenge  his  keen 
puncturing  of  its  pretence  and  its  priggishness.  And 
while  he  writhed  in  private,  he  made  fun  in  public  of 
his  immitigable  grief,  and  portrayed  on  the  stage  the 
betrayed  and  bamboozled  husband — at  once  tragic  and 
absurd — that  he  believed  himself  to  be.  These  eleven 
years  of  home-sorrows  shortened  his  life.  On  the 
very  day  of  his  fatal  attack,  he  said  to  the  flippant 
minx,  Armande :  "  I  could  believe  myself  happy  when 
pleasure  and  pain  equally  filled  my  life ;  but,  to-day, 
broken  with  grief,  unable  to  count  on  one  moment  of 
brightness  or  of  ease,  I  must  give  up  the  game.  I 
can  hold  out  no  longer  against  the  distress  and  despair 
that  leave  me  not  one  instant  of  respite." 

The  church  ceremony  of  their  marriage  had  taken 
place  on  February  20,  1662,  at  Saint-Germain-l'Aux- 
errois,  as  its  register  testifies.  He  had  already  left 
his  bachelor  quarters  on  Quai  de  l'Ecole,  and  had 
taken  an  apartment  in  a  large  house  situated  on  the 
small  open  space  opposite  the  entrance  of  the  Palais- 
Royal,  the  germ  of  the  present  place  of  that  name. 
His  windows  looked  out  toward  his  theatre,  and  on 
the  two  streets  at  whose  junction  the  house  stood 
— Saint-Thomas-du-Louvre  and  Saint-Honore.  The 
first-named  street,  near  its  end  on  Quai  du  Louvre, 
held  the  Hotel  de  Rambouillet,  which  was  a  recon- 
struction of  the  old  I  Intel  de  Pisani,  made  in  1618,  after 
the  plan  and  under  the  eye  of  the  Marquise  de  Ram- 


MOLIERE  AND  HIS  FRIENDS  125 

bouillet.  She  is  known  in  history,  as  she  was  known 
in  the  salons  of  her  day,  by  her  sobriquet  of  "  Arthe- 
nice " — an  anagram  coined  by  Malherbe  from  her 
name  Catherine.  Hither  came  all  that  was  brilliant  in 
Paris,  and  much  that  pretended  to  be  brilliant ;  and 
from  here  went  out  the  grotesque  affectations  of  the 
Precieuses  Ridicules.  The  mansion — one  of  the  grand- 
est of  that  period — having  passed  into  other  hands, 
was  used  as  a  Vauxhall  d'Hiver  in  1784,  as  a  theatre 
in  1792,  and  was  partly  burned  in  1836.  The  remain- 
ing portion,  which  served  as  stables  for  Louis-Philippe, 
was  wiped  away,  along  with  all  that  end  of  the  old 
street,  by  the  Second  Empire,  to  make  space  for  the 
alignment  of  the  wings  of  the  Louvre.  The  buildings 
of  the  Ministry  of  Finance  cover  a  portion  of  the 
street,  and  the  site  of  Moliere's  residence,  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  present  Place  du  Palais-Royal,  is  trodden, 
almost  every  day  of  the  year,  by  the  feet  of  American 
women,  hurrying  to  and  from  the  Museum  of  the 
Louvre  or  the  great  shop  of  the  same  name. 

After  a  short  stay  in  their  first  home,  Moliere  and 
his  wife  set  up  housekeeping  in  Rue  de  Richelieu.  It 
is  not  known  if  it  was  in  the  house  of  his  later  domi- 
cile and  death.  Their  cook  here  was  the  famous  La 
Foret,  to  whom,  it  is  said,  Moliere  read  his  new  plays, 
trying  their  effect  on  the  ordinary  auditor,  such  as 
made  up  the  bulk  of  the  audiences  of  that  time.  Ser- 
vants were  commonly  called  La  Foret  then,  and  the 
real  name  of  this  cook  was  Renee  Vannier.  Within  a 
year,  domestic  dissensions  came  to  abide  in  the  house- 


126  THE   STONES    OE   PARIS 

hold,  and  it  was  moved  back  to  its  first  home,  where 
Madeleine  had  remained,  and  now  made  one  of  the 
menage.  To  it  came  a  new  inmate  in  February,  1664, 
a  boy,  baptized  at  Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois,  having 
the  great  monarch  for  a  godfather,  and  for  a  god- 
mother Henrietta  of  England,  wife  of  the  King's 
brother,  Philippe  d'Orleans,  and  poisoned  by  him  or 
his  creatures  a  few  years  later,  it  is  believed.  These 
royal  sponsors  were  represented  at  the  christening  by 
distinguished  State  servants,  the  whole  affair  giving 
ample  proof  of  this  player's  position  at  the  time. 

A  little  later,  we  have  hints  that  the  small  family 
was  living  farther  east  in  Rue  Saint-Honore,  at  the 
corner  of  Rue  d'Orleans,  still  near  his  theatre,  in  a 
house  swept  away  when  that  street  was  widened  into' 
Rue  du  Louvre.  From  this  house  was  buried,  in  No- 
vember, 1664,  the  child  Louis,  the  burial-service  being 
held  at  Saint-Eustache,  their  parish  church,  Moliere's 
baptismal  church,  his  mother's  burial  church.  Here, 
too,  in  the  following  year,  August,  1665,  he  brought 
to  the  font  his  newly  born  daughter,  Esprit-Madeleine. 
In  October  of  this  same  year  he  took  a  long  lease  of 
an  apartment  in  their  former  house  on  the  corner  of 
Rue  Saint-Thomas-du-Louvre,  and  there  they  stayed 
for  seven  years,  removing  once  more,  and  for  the  last 
time,  in  October,  1672,  to  Rue  de  Richelieu. 

Where  now  stands  No.  40  of  that  street,  Rene 
Baudelet,  Tailor  to  the  Queen  by  title,  had  taken  a 
house  only  recently  buildcd,  and  from  him  Moliere 
rented  nearly  every  floor.     His  lease  was  for  a  term 


MOL1ERE   AND   HIS   FRIENDS  727 

of  six  years,  and  he  lived  only  four  and  a  half  months 
after  coming  here.  The  first  floor  was  set  apart  for 
his  wife,  whose  ostentatious  furnishing,  including  a 
bed  fit  for  a  queen,  is  itemized  in  the  inventory  made 
after  her  husband's  death.  He  took  for  his  apartment 
the  whole  second  floor,  spaciously  planned  and  sumpt- 
uously furnished ;  for  he,  too,  was  lavish  in  his  ex- 
penditure and  loved  costly  surroundings.  His  plate 
was  superb,  his  wardrobe  rich,  his  collection  of  dra- 
matic books  and  manuscripts  complete  and  precious. 
His  bedroom,  wherein  he  died,  was  on  the  rear  of  the 
house,  and  its  windows  looked  over  the  garden  of  the 
Palais-Royal,  to  which  he  had  access  from  his  terrace 
below,  and  thence  by  steps  down  to  a  gate  in  the  gar- 
den wall.  Thus  he  could  get  to  his  theatre  by  way  of 
those  trim  paths  of  Richelieu's  planning,  as  well  as 
by  going  along  the  street  and  around  the  corner.  You 
must  bear  in  mind  that  the  galleries  of  the  Palais- 
Royal,  with  their  shops,  were  not  constructed  until 
1784,  and  that  Rues  de  Valois  and  Montpensier  were 
not  yet  cut ;  so  that  the  garden  reached,  on  either  side, 
to  the  backs  of  the  houses  that  fronted  on  Rues  de 
Richelieu  and  des  Bons-Enfants.  Many  of  the  occu- 
pants had,  like  Moliere,  their  private  doors  in  the 
garden  wall,  with  access  by  stone  steps.  One  of  these 
staircases  is  still  left,  and  may  be  seen  in  Rue  de  Valois, 
descending  from  the  rear  of  the  Hotel  de  la  Chancel- 
lerie  d'Orleans,  whose  Doric  entrance-court  is  at  No. 
19  Rue  des  Bons-Enfants. 
The  house  now  numbered  40  Rue  de  Richelieu  and 


I2«  THE   STONES    OF  PARIS 

37  Rue  Montpensier  was  erected  soon  after  1767,  when 
the  walls  that  had  harbored  Moliere  were  torn  down 
to  prevent  them  from  tumbling  down.  The  present 
building  has  an  admirable  circular  staircase  climbing 
to  an  open  lantern  in  the  roof.  The  houses  on  either 
side,  numbered  $7  bis  and  35  Rue  Montpensier,  retain 
their  original  features  of  a  central  body  with  project- 
ing wings,  and  so  serve  to  show  us  a  likeness  of 
Moliere's  dwelling.  Their  front  windows  look  out  now 
on  the  grand  fountain  of  the  younger  Visconti's  de- 
sign, erected  to  Moliere's  memory  in  1844,  at  the  junc- 
tion of  Rue  de  Richelieu  and  old  Rue  Traversiere,  now 
named  Rue  Moliere.  This  fountain,  flowing  full  and 
free  always,  as  flowed  the  inspiration  of  his  Muse,  is 
surmounted  by  an  admirable  seated  statue  of  the  player- 
poet  by  Seurre,  the  figures  of  Serious  and  of  Light 
Comedy,  standing  at  his  feet  on  either  side,  being  of 
Pradier's  design.  And  in  Rue  de  Richelieu,  a  little 
farther  south,  at  the  present  Nos.  23  and  23  bis — 
once  one  grand  mansion,  still  intact,  though  divided 
— lived  his  friend  Mignard,  and  here  he  died  in  1795. 
The  painter  and  the  player  had  met  at  Avignon  in 
1657-8,  and  grew  to  be  life-long  friends,  with  equal 
admiration  of  the  other's  art.  Indeed,  Moliere  con- 
sidered that  he  honored  Raphael  and  Michael  Angelo, 
when  he  named  them  "  ccs  Mignards  dc  Ictir  age." 
Certainly  no  such  vivid  portrait  of  Moliere  has  come 
down  to  us  as  that  on  the  canvas  of  this  artist,  now 
in  the  gallery  at  Chantilly.  It  shows  us  not  the  co- 
median, but  the  man  in  the  maturity  of  his  strength 


The  Moliere  Fountain. 


MOLIERE   AND   HIS  FRIENDS  129 

and  beauty.  -His  blond  pcrruquc,  such  as  was  worn 
then  by  all  gallants,  such  as  made  his  Alceste  sneer, 
softens  the  features  marked  strongly  even  so  early  in 
life,  but  having  none  of  the  hard  lines  cut  deeper  by 
worry  and  weariness.  The  mouth  is  large  and  frank, 
the  eyes  glow  with  a  humorous  melancholy,  the  ex- 
pression is  eloquent  of  his  wistful  tenderness. 

Early  in  1667  we  find  Moliere  leasing  a  little  cot- 
tage, or  part  of  a  cottage,  at  Auteuil,  for  a  retreat  at 
times.  He  needed  its  pure  air  for  his  failing  health, 
its  quiet  for  his  work,  and  its  distance  from  the  dis- 
quiet of  his  home  with  Armande  and  Madeleine.  He 
had  laid  by  money ;  and  his  earnings,  with  his  pension 
from  the  King — who  had  permitted  to  the  troupe  the 
title  of  "  His  Majesty's  Comedians  " — gave  him  a 
handsome  income.  He  was  not  without  shrewdness 
as  a  man  of  affairs,  and  not  without  tact  as  a  courtier. 
Success,  in  its  worst  worldly  sense,  could  come  only 
through  royal  favor  in  that  day,  and  no  man,  what- 
ever his  manliness,  seemed  ashamed  to  stoop  to  flat- 
ter. Racine,  La  Fontaine,  the  sterling  Boileau,  the 
antiquely  upright  Corneille,  were  tarred,  thickly  or 
thinly,  with  the  same  brush. 

Auteuil  was  then  a  tranquil  village,  far  away  from 
the  town's  turmoil,  and  brought  near  enough  for  its 
dwellers  by  the  silent  and  swift  river.  Now  it  is  a 
bustling  suburb  of  the  city,  and  the  site  of  Moliere's 
cottage  and  grounds  is  covered  by  a  block  of  common- 
place modern  dwellings  on  the  corner  of  Rue  Theophile 
Gautier  and  Rue  d'Auteuil,  and  is  marked  by  a  tablet 
Vol.  I. — 9. 


130  THE   STONES    OE   PARIS 

in  the  front  wall  of  No.  2  of  the  latter  street.  It  has 
been  claimed  that  this  is  a  mistaken  localization,  and 
that  it  is  nearly  opposite  this  spot  that  we  must  look 
for  his  garden  and  a  fragment  of  his  villa,  still  saved. 
The  conscientious  pilgrim  may  not  fail  to  take  that 
look,  and  will  ring  at  the  iron  gate  of  No.  57  Rue 
Theophile  Gautier.  It  is  the  gate  of  the  ancient  hotel 
of  Choiseul-Praslin,  a  name  of  unhappy  memory  in 
the  annals  of  swell  assassins.  The  ducal  wearer  of  the 
title,  during  the  reign  of  Louis-Philippe,  stabbed  his 
wife  to  death  in  their  town-house  in  the  Champs  Ely- 
sees,  and  poisoned  himself  in  his  cell  to  save  his  con- 
demnation by  his  fellow-peers  of  France.  The  ancient 
family  mansion  has  been  taken  by  "  Les  Dominicaincs," 
who  have  devoted  themselves  for  centuries  to  the  edu- 
cation of  young  girls,  and  have  placed  here  the  Insti- 
tution of  Saint  Thomas  of  Aquinas. 

A  white-robed  sister  graciously  gives  permission  to 
enter,  and  leads  the  visitor  across  the  spacious  court, 
through  the  stately  rooms  and  halls — all  intact  in  their 
old-fashioned  harmony  of  proportion  and  decoration 
— into  the  garden  that  stretches  far  along  Rue  de 
Remusat,  and  that  once  spread  away  down  the  slope 
to  the  Seine.  Here,  amid  the  magnificent  cedar  trees, 
centuries  old,  stands  a  mutilated  pavilion  of  red  brick 
and  white  stone  or  stucco,  showing  only  its  unbroken 
porch  with  pillars  and  a  fragment  of  the  fabric,  cut 
raggedly  away  a  few  feet  behind,  to  make  room  for  a 
new  structure.  Over  the  central  door  are  small  fig- 
ures in  bas-relief,  and  in  the  pediment  above  one  reads, 


MO  LI  ERE   AND   HIS  FRIENDS  131 

"  lei  jut  la  Maison  de  Moliere."  It  would  be  a  com- 
fort to  be  able  to  accept  this  legend ;  the  fact  that  pre- 
vents is  that  the  pavilion  was  erected  only  in  1855  by 
the  owner  of  the  garden,  to  keep  alive  the  associations 
of  Moliere  with  this  quarter! 

It  is  in  his  garden,  behind  the  wall  that  holds  the 
tablet,  that  we  may  see  the  player-poet  as  he  rests  in 
the  frequent  free  hours,  and  days  withal,  that  came 
in  the  actor's  busy  life  then.  Here  he  walks,  alone  or 
with  his  chosen  cronies :  Rohault,  his  sympathetic 
physician ;  Boileau,  a  frequent  visitor ;  Chapelle,  who 
had  a  room  in  the  cottage,  the  quondam  schoolfellow 
and  the  man  of  rare  gifts  ;  a  pleasing  minor-poet,  fond 
of  fun,  fonder  of  wine,  friendly  even  to  rudeness,  but 
beloved  by  all  the  others,  whom  he  teased  and  ridi- 
culed, and  yet  counselled  shrewdly.  He  sympathized 
with,  albeit  his  sceptic  spirit  could  not  quite  fraternize 
with,  the  sensitive  vibrating  nature  of  Moliere,  that 
brought,  along  with  acutest  enjoyment,  the  keenest  suf- 
fering. In  this  day-and-night  companionship,  craving 
consolation  for  his  betossed  soul,  Moliere  gave  voice 
to  his  sorrows,  bewailing  his  wife's  frailties  and  the 
torments  they  brought  to  him — to  him,  "  born  to  ten- 
derness," as  he  truly  put  it,  but  unable  to  plant  any 
root  of  tenderness  in  her  shallow  nature — loving  her 
in  spite  of  reason,  living  with  her,  but  not  as  her  hus- 
band, suffering  ceaselessly. 

This  garden  often  saw  gayer  scenes  of  good-fellow- 
ship and  feasting,  and  once  a  historic  frolic,  when  the 
convives,  flushed  with  wine,  ran  down  the  slope  to  the 


132  THE   STONES   OF  PARIS 

river,  bent  on  plunging  in  to  cool  their  blood,  and  were 
kept  dry  and  undrowned  by  Moliere's  steadier  head 
and  hand.  His  menage  was  modest,  and  his  wife  sel- 
dom came  out  from  their  town  apartment,  but  his 
daughter  was  brought  often  for  a  visit  from  her  board- 
ing-school near  by  in  Auteuil.  He  was  beloved  by  all 
his  neighbors,  to  whom  he  was  known  less  by  his  public 
repute  than  by  his  constant  kindly  acts  among  them. 
It  was  not  the  actor-manager,  but  the  "  tapissicr  valet- 
de-chambre  du  Roi,"  then  residing  in  Auteuil,  who 
signed  the  register  of  the  parish  church,  as  god-father 
of  a  village  boy  on  March  20,  1671  ;  just  as  he  had 
signed,  in  the  same  capacity,  the  register  of  Saint- 
Roch  on  September  10,  1669,  at  the  christening  of  a 
friend's  daughter,  Jeanne  Catherine  Toutbel.  These 
signatures  were  destroyed  when  all  the  ancient  church 
registers,  then  stored  in  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  were  burned 
by  the  Commune. 

On  the  night  of  Friday,  February  16,  1673,  while 
personating  his  Malade  Imaginaire — its  fourth  per- 
formance— Moliere  was  struck  down  by  a  genuine 
malady.  He  pulled  through  the  play,  and,  as  the  cur- 
tain went  down  at  last,  he  was  nearly  strangled  by  a 
spasm  of  coughing  that  broke  a  blood-vessel.  Careful 
hands  carried  him  around  to  his  bedroom  on  the  sec- 
ond floor  of  No.  40,  where  in  a  few  days — too  few, 
his  years  being  a  little  more  than  fifty — death  set  him 
free  from  suffering. 

This  fatal  crisis  was  the  culmination  of  a  long  series 
of  recurrent  paroxysms,  coming  from  his  fevered  life 


MOLIERE  AND  HIS  FRIENDS  133 

and  his  fiery  soul,  that  "  o'er  informed  the  tenement 
of  clay,"  in  Dryden's  phrase.  And  his  heart  had  been 
crushed  by  the  death  of  his  second  boy,  Pierre-Jean- 
Baptiste-Armand,  in  October  of  the  previous  year. 
Then,  on  the  physical  side,  he  had  been  subjected 
throughout  long  years  to  constant  exposure  to  draughts 
on  the  stage,  and  to  sudden  changes  within  and  with- 
out the  theatre,  most  trying  to  so  delicate  a  frame. 
His  watchful  friend,  Boileau,  had  often  urged  him  to 
leave  the  stage  before  he  should  break  down.  More- 
over, it  distressed  Boileau  that  the  greatest  genius  of 
his  time,  as  he  considered  Moliere,  should  have  to 
paint  his  face,  put  on  a  false  mustache,  get  into  a 
bag  and  be  beaten  with  sticks,  in  his  ludicrous  role 
of  comic  valet.  But  all  pleading  was  thrown  away. 
The  invalid  maintained  that  nothing  but  his  own  man- 
agement, his  own  plays,  and  his  own  playing,  kept 
his  theatre  alive  and  his  company  from  starvation ; 
and  so  he  held  on  to  the  end,  dying  literally  in  harness. 
His  wife  appeared  too  late  on  the  last  scene,  the  priest 
who  was  summoned  could  not  come  in  time,  and  the 
dying  eyes  were  closed  by  two  stranger  nuns,  lodging 
for  the  time  in  the  house. 

The  arm-chair,  in  which  sat  the  Malade  Imaginaire 
on  the  last  night  of  his  professional  life,  is  treasured 
among  the  relics  of  the  Theatre  Francais.  It  is  a 
massive  piece  of  oak  furniture,  with  solid  square  arms 
and  legs ;  the  roomy  back  lets  down,  and  is  held  at 
any  required  angle  by  an  iron  ratchet;  there  are  iron 
pegs  in  front  for  the  little  shelf,  used  by  the  sick  man 


134  THE   STONES   OF  PARIS 

for  his  bottles  and  books.  The  brown  leather  cover- 
ing is  time-worn  and  stitched  in  spots.  It  is  a  most 
attractive  relic,  this  simple  piece  of  stage  property. 
Its  exact  copy  as  to  shape,  size,  and  color  is  used  on 
the  boards  of  the  Theatre  Frangais  in  the  performances 
of  "  Le  Malade  Imaginaire."  And,  with  equal  rever- 
ence, they  kept  for  many  years  in  the  ancient  village 
of  Pezenas,  in  Languedoc — where  the  strolling  troupe 
wintered  in  1655-6,  playing  in  the  adjacent  hamlets 
and  in  the  chateaux  of  the  seigneurie  about — the  big 
wooden  arm-chair  belonging  to  the  barber  Gely,  and 
almost  daily  through  that  winter  occupied  by  Moliere. 
Upon  it  he  was  wont  to  sit,  in  a  corner,  contemplating 
all  who  came  and  went,  making  secret  notes  on  the 
tablets  he  carried  always  for  constant  records  of  the 
human  document.  It  has  descended  to  a  gentleman 
in  Paris,  by  whom  it  is  cherished. 

The  cure  of  Saint-Eustache,  the  parish  church,  re- 
fused its  sacrament  for  the  burial  of  the  author  of 
"  Tartufe."  "  To  get  by  prayer  a  little  earth,"  in  Boi- 
leau's  words,  the  widow  had  to  plead  with  the  King; 
and  it  was  only  his  order  that  wrung  permission  from 
the  Archbishop  of  Paris  for  those  "  maimed  rites  "  that 
we  all  know.  They  were  accorded,  not  to  the  player, 
but,  as  the  burial  register  reads,  to  the  "  Tapissier 
Talet-de-chambre  du  Roi."  Carried  to  his  grave  by 
night,  he  was  followed  by  a  great  concourse  of  unhired 
mourners,  of  every  rank  and  condition  ;  and  to  the  poor 
among  them,  money  was  distributed  by  the  widow. 
The  grave — in  which  was  placed  the  French  Terence 


MOLIERE   AMD  HIS  FRIENDS  135 

and  Plautus  in  one,  to  use  La  Fontaine's  happy  phrase 
— was  dug  in  that  portion  of  the  cemetery  of  the  Chapel 
of  Saint-Joseph,  belonging  to  Saint-Eustache,  that  was 
styled  consecrated  by  the  priesthood.  This  cemetery 
going  out  of  use,  the  ground,  which  lay  on  the  right 
of  the  old  road  to  Montmartre,  was  given  to  a  market. 
This,  in  its  turn,  was  cleared  away  between  1875  and 
1880,  and  on  the  site  of  the  cemetery  are  the  buildings 
numbered  142  and  144  Rue  Montmartre,  24  and  26 
Rue  Saint- Joseph.  Over  the  grave,  as  she  thought, 
the  widow  erected  a  great  tombstone,  under  which,  tra- 
dition says,  Moliere  did  not  lie.  Tradition  lies,  doubt- 
less, and  Armande's  belated  grief  and  posthumous  de- 
votion probably  displayed  themselves  on  the  right  spot. 
The  stone  was  cracked — going  to  bits  soon  after — by  a 
fire  built  on  it  during  the  terrible  winter  a  few  years 
later,  when  the  poor  of  Paris  were  warmed  by  great 
out-of-door  fires.  The  exact  spot  of  sepulture  could 
not  be  fixed  in  1792,  when  the  more  sober  revolution- 
ary sections  were  anxious  to  save  the  remains  of  their 
really  great  men  from  the  desecrations  of  the  Patriots, 
to  whom  no  ground  was  consecrate,  nor  any  memories 
sacred.  Then,  in  the  words  of  the  official  document, 
"  the  bones  which  seemed  to  be  those  of  Moliere  "  were 
exhumed,  and  carried  for  safe  keeping  to  the  Museum 
of  French  Monuments  begun  by  Alexandre  Lenoir  in 
1 79 1,  in  the  Convent  of  the  Petits-Augustins.  Its  site 
is  now  mostly  covered  by  the  court  of  the  Beaux-Arts 
in  Rue  Bonaparte.  Those  same  supposed  bones  of  Mo- 
liere were  transferred,  early  in  the  present  century,  to 


136  THE   STONES    OF  PARIS 

the  Cemetery  of  Pere-Lachaise,  where  they  now  lie  in 
a  stone  sarcophagus.  By  their  side  rest  the  supposed 
bones  of  La  Fontaine,  removed  from  the  same  ground 
to  the  same  museum  at  the  same  time ;  La  Fontaine 
having  really  been  buried,  twenty-two  years  after  Mo- 
liere's  burial,  in  the  Cemetery  of  the  Innocents,  a  half- 
mile  from  that  of  Saint-Joseph  ! 

Our  ignorance  as  to  whether  these  be  Moliere's 
bones,  under  the  monument  in  Pere-Lachaise,  is 
matched  by  our  unacquaintance  with  the  facts  of  his 
life.  And  we  know  almost  as  little  of  Moliere  the  man, 
as  we  know  of  the  man  called  Shakespeare — the  only 
names  in  the  modern  drama  which  can  be  coupled.  We 
have  no  specimens  of  the  actual  manuscript,  and  few 
specimens  of  the  handwriting,  of  either.  The  Comedie 
Franchise  has  a  priceless  signature  of  Moliere  given  by 
Dumas  His,  and  there  are  others,  it  is  believed,  on  legal 
documents  in  notaries'  offices,  but  no  one  knows  how  to 
get  at  them. 

His  portraiture  by  pen,  too,  would  have  been  lost  to 
us,  but  for  an  old  lady  who  has  left  a  detailed  and  vivid 
description  of  "  Monsieur  Moliere."  This  Madame 
Poisson  was  the  daughter  of  Du  Croissy,  whose  name 
appears  in  the  troupe's  early  play-bills ;  and  the  wife 
of  Paul  Poisson,  also  an  actor  with  Moliere,  and  with 
his  widow.  Madame  Poisson  died  in  1756,  aged  nine- 
ty-eight, so  that  she  was  an  observant  and  intelligent 
girl  of  fifteen  at  the  time  of  Moliere's  death.  In  her 
recollections,  written  in  1740,  she  says  that  he  was 
neither  stout  nor  thin  ;  in  stature  he  was  rather  tall  than 


M0L1KRE   AND   HIS   FRIENDS  137 

short,  his  carriage  noble,  his  leg"  very  fine,  his  walk 
measured,  his  air  most  serious ;  the  nose  large,  the 
mouth  wide,  the  lips  full,  his  complexion  dark,  his  eye- 
brows black  and  heavy,  "  and  the  varied  movements  he 
gave  them  " — and,  she  might  have  added,  his  whole 
facial  flexibility — "  made  him  master  of  immense  comic 
expression." 

"  His  air  most  serious,"  she  says ;  it  was  more  than 
that,  as  is  proven  by  hints  of  his  companions,  and  shown 
by  strokes  in  the  surviving  portraits.  All  these  go  to 
assure  us  of  his  essential  melancholy.  Not  only  did 
he  carry  about  with  him  the  traditional  dejection  of 
the  comic  actor,  but  he  was  by  character  and  by  habit 
contemplative — observant  of  human  nature — as  well 
as  introspective — peering  into  his  own  nature.  The 
man  who  does  this  necessarily  grows  sad.  Moliere's 
sadness  was  mitigated  by  a  humor  of  equal  depth,  a 
conjunction  rare  in  the  Latin  races,  and  found  at  its 
best  only  in  him  and  in  Cervantes.  This  set  him  to 
writing  and  acting  farces ;  and  into  them  he  put  senti- 
ment for  the  first  time  on  the  French  stage.  There  is 
a  gravity  behind  his  buffoonery,  and  a  secret  sympathy 
with  his  butts.  So,  when  he  came  to  write  comedy — 
that  hard  and  merciless  exposure  of  our  common  hu- 
man nature,  turned  inside  out  for  scorn — he  left  place 
for  pity  in  his  ridicule,  and  there  is  no  cruelty  in  his 
laughter.  His  wholly  sweet  spirit  could  not  be  soured 
by  the  injustices  and  insolences  that  came  into  his  life. 
If  there  was  a  bitter  taste  in  his  mouth,  his  lips  were  all 
honey.     "  Ce  rire  amcr,"  marked  by  Boileau  in  the 


138  THE   STONES   OF  PARIS 

actor's  Alceste,  was  only  his  stage  assumption  for  that 
character.  The  inborn  good-heartedncss  that  made  his 
comedy  gracious  and  unhostile,  made  his  relations  with 
men  and  women  always  kindly  and  generous.  You  see 
that  sympathy  with  humanity  in  Mignard's  portrait, 
and  in  the  bust  in  the  foyer  of  the  Comedie  Francaise, 
made  by  Houdon  from  other  portraits  and  from  de- 
scriptions. Under  the  projecting  brow  of  the  observer 
are  the  eyes  of  the  contemplator,  shrewd  and  specu- 
lative, and  withal  infinitely  sorrowful,  with  the  sad- 
ness of  the  man  who  knew  how  to  suffer  acutely, 
mostly  in  silence  and  in  patience ;  and  this  is  the  face 
of  the  man  who  made  all  France  laugh ! 

Pierre  Corneille  stands  in  bronze  on  the  bridge  of 
his  natal  town,  Rouen,  where  he  stood  in  the  flesh  of  his 
twenty-eight  years,  among  other  citizens  who  went  to 
welcome  Louis  XIII.  and  his  ruler,  Richelieu,  on  their 
visit  in  1634.  The  young  advocate  by  profession  and 
poet  by  predilection  presented  his  verses  in  greeting  and 
in  honor  of  the  King,  and  was  soon  after  enrolled  one  of 
the  small  and  select  band  of  the  Cardinal's  poets.  With 
the  Cardinal's  commission  and  a  play  or  two,  already 
written  when  only  twenty-three,  he  made  his  way  to 
Paris.  For  nearly  thirty  years,  the  years  of  his  dra- 
matic triumphs,  Corneille  lived  alternately  in  Paris  and 
in  Rouen,  until  his  mother's  death,  in  1662,  left  him 
free  to  make  his  home  in  the  capital.  In  that  year  he 
settled  in  rooms  in  the  Hotel  de  Guise,  now  the  Musee 
des  Archives,  whose  ducal  owner  was  a  patron  of  the 


MO  LI  ERF.    AND   HIS  FRIENDS  139 

Theatre  du  Marais,  close  at  hand.  At  his  death,  in  or 
about  1664,  Corneille  sent  in  a  rhymed  petition  for 
rooms  in  the  Louvre,  where  lodging  was  granted  to 
men  of  letters  not  too  well-to-do.  His  claim  was  re- 
fused, and  he  took  an  apartment  in  Rue  de  Clery  during 
that  same  year.  It  was  a  workman's  quarter,  and  none 
of  its  houses  were  very  grand,  but  that  of  Corneille  is 
spoken  of  as  one  of  the  better  sort,  with  its  own  porte- 
cochere.  Pierre's  younger  brother,  Thomas,  came  to 
live  in  the  same  house.  And  from  this  time  on,  the  two 
brothers  were  never  parted  in  their  lives.  They  had 
married  sisters,  and  the  two  families  dwelt  in  quiet  hap- 
piness under  the  common  roof.  This  house  in  Rue  de 
Clery  cannot  be  fixed.  It  may  be  one  of  the  poor 
dwellings  still  standing  in  that  old  street,  or  it  may  no 
longer  exist.  It  is  the  house  famous  in  anecdotal  his- 
tory for  owning  the  trap-door  in  the  floor  between  the 
working-rooms  of  the  brothers,  which  Pierre — at  loss 
for  an  adequate  rhyme — would  lift  up,  and  call  to 
Thomas,  writing  in  his  room  below,  to  give  him  the 
wished-for  word. 

This  dull  street  formed  the  background  of  a  touching 
picture,  when,  in  1667,  Corneille's  son  was  brought 
home,  wounded,  from  the  siege  of  Douai.  The  straw 
from  the  litter  was  scattered  about  the  street  as  the 
father  helped  them  lift  his  boy  to  carry  him  into  the 
house,  and  Corneille  was  summoned  to  the  Chatelet, 
for  breaking  police  regulations  with  regard  to  the  care 
of  thoroughfares;  he  appeared,  pleaded  his  own  cause, 
and  was  cast  in  damages ! 


i4o  THE   STOA'ES   OF  PARIS 

Here  in  1671,  Corneille  and  Moliere,  in  collaboration, 
wrote  the  "  tragedy-ballet  '  Psyche  '  " ;  this  work  in 
common  cementing  a  friendship  already  begun  between 
the  two  men,  and  now  made  firmer  for  the  two  years  of 
Moliere's  life  on  from  this  date.  The  play  was  begun 
and  finished  in  a  fortnight,  to  meet  the  usual  urgency  of 
the  King  in  his  amusements.  Moliere  planned  the 
piece  and  its  spectacular  effects,  and  wrote  the  pro- 
logue, the  first  act,  and  the  first  scenes  of  the  second 
and  third  acts ;  Corneille's  share  being  the  rest  of  the 
rhymed  dialogue  and  the  songs.  It  was  set  to  music  by 
Lulli — "  the  incomparable  Monsieur  Lulli,"  as  he  was 
called  by  Moliere — whose  generous  laudation  of  the 
musician  was  not  lessened  by  his  estimate  of  the  man. 
For  Lulli  was  not  an  honest  man,  and  he  prospered  at 
the  expense  of  his  fellows.  His  magnificent  home  was 
built  by  money  borrowed  from  Moliere,  whose  widow 
was  repaid  as  we  have  seen.  Lulli's  hotel  is  still  in  per- 
fect condition  as  to  its  exterior,  at  the  corner  of  Rues 
des  Petits-Champs  and  Sainte-Anne.  This  latter  front 
is  the  finer,  with  its  pilasters  and  composite  capitals,  its 
masks  carved  in  the  keystones  of  the  low  entresol  win- 
dows, and  the  musical  instruments  placed  above  the 
middle  window  of  the  first  grand  floor. 

They  make  a  pretty  picture,  not  without  a  touch  of 
the  pathetic — and  M.  Gcrome  has  put  it  on  canvas — as 
they  sit  side  by  side,  planning  and  plotting  their  play: 
Moliere  at  the  top  of  his  career,  busy,  prosperous,  ap- 
plauded ;  Corneille  past  his  prime  and  his  popularity, 
beginning  to  bend  with  age  and  to  break  in  spirit.    Pie 


MOLIERE  AND  HIS  FRIENDS  141 

had,  by  now,  fallen  on  evil  days,  which  saw  him  "  sati- 
ated with  glory,  and  famished  for  money,"  in  his  words 
to  Boileau.  Richelieu  may  not  have  done  much  for 
him,  but  he  had  been  at  least  a  power  in  his  patronage, 
and  his  death,  in  1642,  had  left  the  old  poet  with  no 
friend  at  court,  albeit  the  new  minister,  Mazarin,  had 
put  him  on  the  pension  list.  His  triumphs  with  "  Le 
Cid  "  and  "  Les  Horaces  "  had  not  saved  him  from — 
nor  helped  him  bear — the  dire  failures  of  "  Attila  "  and 
of  "  Agesilas."  Poetry  had  proved  a  poor  trade,  royalty 
had  forgotten  him,  Colbert's  economies  had  left  his 
pension  in  arrears  along  with  many  others,  and  finally, 
after  Colbert's  death,  the  new  minister,  Louvois,  had 
suppressed  it  entirely.  Against  the  earlier  default  he 
had  made  patient  and  whimsical  protest  in  verse ;  each 
official  year  of  delay  had  been  officially  lengthened  to 
fifteen  months  ;  and  Corneille's  Muse  was  made  to  hope 
that  each  of  the  King's  remaining  years  of  reign  might 
be  lengthened  to  an  equal  limit ! 

The  contrast  between  the  two  figures — the  King  of 
French  Tragedy  shabby  in  Paris  streets,  the  King  of 
French  people  resplendent  at  Versailles — is  sharply 
drawn  by  Theophile  Gautier  in  his  superb  verses,  read 
at  Corneille's  birthday  fete  at  the  Comedie  Francaise, 
on  June  6,  185 1.  Gautier  had  not  been  able  to  find 
any  motive  for  the  lines,  which  he  had  promised  to 
prepare  for  Arsene  Houssaye,  the  director,  until  Hugo 
gave  him  this  cue. 

The  faithful,  generous  Boileau — the  man  called 
"  stingy,"  because  of  his  exactness,  which  yet  enabled 


142  THE   STONES    OE  PARIS 

him  always  to  aid  others — offered  to  surrender  his  own 
well-secured  and  promptly-paid  pension  in  favor  of 
his  old  friend  ;  a  transfer  not  allowed  by  the  authorities, 
and  the  King  sent  a  sum  of  money,  at  length,  to  Cor- 
neille.  It  came  two  days  before  the  poet's  death,  when 
he  might  have  quoted,  "  I  have  no  time  to  spend  it ! " 
There  is  extant  a  letter  from  an  old  Rouen  friend  of  his 
who,  visiting  Paris  in  1679,  describes  a  walk  he  took 
with  Corneille,  then  aged  seventy-three.  In  Rue  de  la 
Parcheminerie — that  ancient  street  on  the  left  bank  of 
the  Seine,  which  we  have  already  found  to  be  less 
spoiled  by  modern  improvements  than  are  its  neigh- 
bors— Corneille  sat  down  on  a  plank  by  a  cobbler's  stall, 
to  have  one  of  his  worn  shoes  patched.  That  cobbler's 
stall,  or  its  direct  descendant,  may  be  seen  in  that  street, 
to-day.  Corneille  counted  his  coppers  and  found  just 
enough  to  pay  the  cobbler's  paltry  charge ;  refusing  to 
accept  any  coin  from  the  proffered  purse  of  his  friend, 
who,  then  and  there,  wept  in  pity  for  such  a  plight  for 
such  a  man. 

Age  and  poverty  took  up  their  abode  with  him — as 
well  as  his  more  welcome  comrade,  the  constant  Thomas 
— in  his  next  dwelling.  We  cannot  be  sure  when  they 
left  Rue  deClery,  and  we  find  them  first  in  Rue  d'Argen- 
teuil  in  November,  1683,  the  year  of  Colbert's  death. 
That  old  road  from  the  village  of  Argenteuil  had  be- 
come, and  still  remains,  a  city  street  absolutely  without 
character  or  temperament  of  its  own ;  it  has  not  the 
merit  even  of  being  ignoble.  And  the  Corneille  house 
at  No.  6,  as  it  was  seen  just  before  its  destruction,  was 


r£&su 


The  Door  of  Corneille's  Last  Dwelling:. 

(From  a  drawing  by  Robert  Delafontaine,  by  permission  of  M.  Victorien  Sardou. 


MO  LI  ERE   AND   HIS   FRIENDS  143 

a  gloomy  and  forbidding  building.  It  had  two  en- 
trances— as  has  the  grandiose  structure  now  standing 
on  its  site — one  in  Rue  d'Argenteuil,  on  which  front  is 
a  tablet  marking  this  historic  scene  of  the  poet's  death, 
and  the  other  in  Rue  de  l'Eveque.  That  street  was 
wiped  out  of  existence  by  the  cutting  of  Avenue  de 
l'Opera  in  1877-8,  which  necessitated  the  demolition 
of  this  dreary  old  house.  Its  most  attractive  relic  is 
now  in  the  possession  of  M.  Victorien  Sardou,  at  his 
country  house,  at  Marly-le-Roi,  in  the  porte-cochere, 
with  its  knocker.  Every  guest  there  is  proud  to  put 
his  hand  on  the  veritable  knocker  lifted  so  often  by 
Corneille's  hand. 

That  hand  had  lost  its  fire  and  force  by  this  time,  and 
the  poet's  last  months  were  wretched  enough  in  these 
vast  and  desolate  rooms  on  the  second  floor,  so  vast  and 
desolate  that  he  was  unable  to  keep  his  poor  septua- 
genarian bones  warm  within  them.  Here  came  death 
to  him  on  Sunday,  October  1,  1684.  They  buried  him 
in  his  parish  church,  Saint-Roch,  a  short  step  from  his 
home ;  and  on  the  western  pillar  within  the  entrance  a 
tablet  to  his  memory  was  placed  in  1821.  The  church 
was  so  short  a  step,  that,  feeble  and  forlorn  as  he  was, 
he  had  found  his  way  there  early  of  mornings  during 
these  last  years.  And  in  his  earlier  years,  when  living 
in  Rue  de  Clery,  he  had  often  hurried  there,  drawn  by 
the  strong  and  splendid  Bossuet,  whose  abode  was 
either  in  Rue  Sainte-Anne  hard  by,  or  in  the  then  new 
mansion  still  standing  in  Place  des  Victoires.  Here  in 
the  church,  as  we  stand  between  Corneille's  tablet  and 


144  THE    STONES   OF  EAAVS 

Bossuet's  pulpit,  the  contrast  is  brought  home  to  us 
of  the  two  forms  of  eloquence  that  most  touch  men : 
that  of  this  preacher  burning  with  ancient  Hebraic 
fire,  and  that  of  this  dramatist  glowing  with  the  white- 
heat  of  classicism. 

After  the  burial,  the  bereft  Thomas  removed  to 
rooms  in  Cul-de-sac  des  Jacobins,  only  a  little  way 
from  his  last  home  with  Pierre.  This  blind  alley  has 
now  been  cut  through  to  the  market  of  Saint-Honore, 
and  become  a  short  commonplace  street,  named  Saint- 
Hyacinthe.  Twenty  years  the  younger  of  the  two, 
Thomas  was,  during  his  life,  and  has  been  in  his  after- 
renown,  unduly  overshadowed  by  his  imperishable 
brother.  He  had  a  rare  gift  of  versification,  and  a 
certain  skill  in  the  putting  together  of  plays.  Of  them . 
he  constructed  a  goodly  lot,  some  few  of  them  in  col- 
laboration. His  "  Timocrate,"  played  for  eighty  con- 
secutive nights  at  the  Theatre  du  Marais,  was  the  most 
popular  success  on  the  boards  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury. His  knack  in  pleasing  the  public  taste  was  as 
much  his  own  as  was  his  mastery  of  managers,  by 
which  he  got  larger  royalties  than  any  playwright  of 
his  day.  He  was  a  competent  craftsman,  too,  in  more 
weighty  fabrications,  and  turned  out,  from  his  factory, 
translations  and  dictionaries,  which  have  joined  his 
plays  in  everlasting  limbo. 

All  the  early  theatrical  productions  of  Pierre  Cor- 
neille  were  originally  put  on  the  stage  of  the  Theatre  du 
Marais,  which  had  been  started  by  scccders  from  the 
theatre  of  the  Hotel  de  Bourgognc,  as  has  been  told  in 


MOLIERE   AND  HIS  FRIENDS  145 

our  first  chapter.  After  a  temporary  lodgment  in  the 
quarter  of  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  it  was  soon  permanently 
housed  in  the  recast  tennis-court  of  the  "  Hotel  Sale." 
There  it  remained  until  1728,  when  Le  Camus  bought 
the  place  and  turned  the  theatre  into  stables.  Where 
stands  modern  No.  90  in  the  widened  Rue  Vieille-du- 
Temple  was  the  public  entrance  of  the  theatre.  The 
"  Hotel  Sale,"  the  work  of  Lepautre,  is  still  in  perfect 
condition  behind  the  houses  of  Rue  Vieille-du-Temple. 
Its  principal  portal  is  at  Rue  Thorigny,  5,  with  a  side 
entrance  in  Rue  Saint-Gervais-des-Coutures.  Known 
at  first  as  the  Hotel  Juigne,  it  was  popularly  renamed, 
in  the  seventeenth  century,  the  "  Hotel  Sale,"  because 
its  rapacious  owner,  Aubray  de  Fontenay,  had  amassed 
his  wealth  by  farming  out  the  salt  tax — that  most  ex- 
acting and  irritating  of  the  many  taxes  of  that  time. 

Through  a  lordly  arch  in  Rue  Thorigny,  we  pass  into 
the  grand  court,  and  find  facing  us  the  dignified  faqade, 
its  imposing  pediment  carved  with  figures  and  flowers. 
Within  is  a  stately  hall,  made  the  more  stately  by  the 
placing  at  one  end  of  a  noble  chimney-piece,  a  copy  of 
one  at  Versailles.  In  the  centre  a  superb  staircase  rises, 
wide  and  easy,  through  a  sculptured  cage,  to  the  first 
floor ;  its  old  wrought-iron  railing  is  of  an  exquisite 
pattern ;  nothing  in  all  Paris  is  nearer  perfection  than 
this  staircase,  its  railing,  and  its  balustrade.  In  the 
rooms  above,  kept  with  reverence  by  the  bronze-maker 
who  occupies  them,  admirable  panelling  and  carvings 
are  found.  The  facade  on  the  gardens — now  shrunk 
from  their  former  spaciousness  to  a  small  court — is 
Vol.  I. — 10. 


146  THE    STONES    OF   PARIS 

most  impressive,  with  ancient  wrought-iron  balconies; 
in  its  pediment,  two  vigilant  dogs  watch  the  hands 
that  move  no  more  on  the  great  clock-face  between 
them. 

The  Theatre  du  Marais  had  been  established  here  by 
the  famous  Turlupin,  made  immortal  in  Boileau's  verse, 
who,  with  his  two  comic  confreres — baker's  boys,  like 
the  brothers  Coquelin  of  our  day — kept  his  audiences  in 
a  roar  with  his  modern  French  farces  farcied  with  old 
Gaulish  grossness.  It  was  he  who  invented  the  comic 
valet — badgered  and  beaten,  always  lying  and  always 
funny — who  was  subsequently  elaborated  into  the  im- 
mortal Sganerelle  by  Moliere.  He,  while  a  boy,  had 
sat  in  this  theatre,  watching  Turlupin ;  and  when  he 
had  grown  into  a  manager,  he  is  said  to  have  bought- 
some  of  the  stage  copies  of  these  farces,  when  Turlu- 
pin's  death  disbanded  his  troupe. 

These  "  Comcdicns  du  Marais  "  were  regarded  with 
a  certain  condescension  not  unmingled  with  disdain  by 
their  stately  confreres  left  at  the  Hotel  de  Bourgogne, 
who  were  shocked  when  Richelieu,  becoming  bored  by 
their  dreary  traditional  proprieties,  sent  for  Turlupin 
and  his  troupe  to  give  a  specimen  of  their  acting  in  his 
palace.  And  the  great  cardinal  actually  laughed,  a 
rare  indulgence  he  allowed  himself,  and  told  the  King's 
Comedians  that  he  wished  they  might  play  to  as  good 
effect ! 

Still,  the  Theatre  du  Marais  was  not  entirely  given 
over  to  farce,  for  it  alternated  with  the  tragedy  of  the 
then  famous  Hardy;   and  Mondory,  the  best  tragedian 


M0L1ERR   AND   HIS  FRIENDS  147 

of  the  day,  was  at  one  time  the  head  of  the  troupe. 
Mondory  had  brought  back  from  a  provincial  tour,  in 
1629,  the  manuscript  of  "  Melite,"  by  a  young  lawyer 
of  Rouen,  named  Corneille.  This  piece  was  weak,  but 
it  was  not  a  failure.  And  so,  when  the  author  came 
to  town,  his  tragedies  were  played  at  this  theatre  and 
drew  crowds  to  the  house.  There  they  first  saw  the 
true  tragic  Muse  herself  on  the  French  boards.  Those 
rough,  coarse  boards  of  that  early  theatre  he  planed 
and  polished,  with  conscience  and  with  craft,  and  made 
them  fit  for  her  queenly  feet ;  and  through  her  lips  he 
breathed,  in  sublime  tirades,  his  own  elevation  of  soul, 
to  the  inspiration  of  that  shabby  scene.  For  the  first 
time  in  the  French  drama,  he  put  skill  into  the  plot, 
art  into  the  intrigue,  taste  into  the  wit ;  in  a  word,  he 
gave  to  dramatic  verse  "  good  sense  " — "  the  only  aim 
of  poetry,"  Boileau  claimed — and  showed  the  meaning 
and  the  value  of  "  reason  "  on  the  stage ;  and  for  the 
doing  of  this  Racine  revered  him. 

As  to  Corneille's  personality,  we  are  told  by  Fon- 
tenelle — his  nephew,  a  man  of  slight  value,  a  better 
talker  than  writer,  an  unmoved  man,  who  prided  him- 
self on  never  laughing  and  never  crying — that  his 
uncle  had  rather  an  agreeable  countenance,  with  very 
marked  features,  a  large  nose,  a  handsome  mouth,  eyes 
full  of  fire,  and  an  animated  expression.  Others  who 
saw  Corneille  say  that  he  looked  like  a  shopkeeper ;  and 
that  as  to  his  manner,  he  seemed  simple  and  timid,  and 
as  to  his  talk,  he  zuas  dull  and  tiresome.  His  enuncia- 
tion was  not  distinct,  so  that  in  reading  his  own  verses 


i48  THE   STONES    OE  PARIS 

— he  could  not  recite  them — he  was  forcible  but  not 
graceful.  Guizot  puts  it  curtly  and  cruelly,  when  he 
writes  that  Corneille  was  destitute  of  all  that  distin- 
guishes a  man  from  his  equals ;  that  his  appearance  was 
common,  his  conversation  dull,  his  language  incorrect, 
his  timidity  ungainly,  his  judgment  untrustworthy. 
It  was  well  said,  in  his  day,  that  to  know  the  greatness 
of  Corneille,  he  must  be  read,  or  be  seen  in  his  work  on 
the  stage.  He  has  said  so  in  the  verse  that  confesses 
his  own  defects : 

"  J'ai  la  plume  feconde  et  la  bouche  stir  He, 
Et  Von  pent  rarement  m'ecouter  sans  ennui, 
Que  quandje  me  produis  par  la  bouche  d'aulrui." 

In  truth,  we  must  agree  with  Guizot,  that  the  grand 
old  Roman  was  irrevocably  doomed  to  pass  unnoticed 
in  a  crowd.  And  he  was  content  that  this  should  be. 
For  he  had  his  own  pride,  expressed  in  his  words :  "  Je 
sais  ce  que  je  vaux."  He  made  no  clamor  when 
Georges  de  Scudery  was  proclaimed  his  superior  by 
the  popular  voice,  which  is  always  the  voice  of  the  fool- 
ish. And  when  that  shallow  charlatan  sneered  at  him 
in  print,  he  left  to  Boileau  the  castigation  that  was  so 
thoroughly  given.  His  friends  had  to  drive  him  to  the 
defence  of  his  "  Cid  "  in  the  Academy,  to  which  he  had 
been  elected  in  1647.  His  position  with  regard  to  the 
"  Cid  "  was  peculiar  and  embarrassing;  it  was  Riche- 
lieu, the  jealous  playwright,  who  attacked  the  successful 
tragedy,  and  it  was  Richelieu,  the  all-potent  patron, 
who  was  to  be  answered  and  put  in  the  wrong.    The 


Pierre  Corneille. 

(From  the  portrait  by  Charles  Lebrun.) 


MO  LI  ERE  AND  HIS  FRIENDS  149 

skirmish  being  ended,  with  honor  to  Corneille,  he  re- 
tired into  his  congenial  obscurity  and  his  beloved  soli- 
tude. And  there  the  world  left  him,  alone  with  his 
good  little  brother  Thomas,  both  contented  in  their 
comradeship.  For  in  private  life  he  was  easy  to  get  on 
with,  always  full  of  friendliness,  always  ready  of  access 
to  those  he  loved,  and,  for  all  his  brusque  humor  and 
his  external  rudeness,  he  was  a  good  husband,  father, 
brother.  He  shrank  from  the  worldly  and  successful 
Racine,  who  reverenced  him  ;  and  he  was  shy  of  the  so- 
ciety of  other  pen-workers  who  would  have  made  a 
companion  of  him.  His  independent  soul  was  not 
softened  by  any  adroitness  or  tact ;  he  was  clumsy  in 
his  candor,  and  not  at  home  in  courtier-land;  there 
was  not  one  fibre  of  the  flunky  in  his  simple,  sincere, 
self-respecting  frame ;  and  when  forced  to  play  that 
unwonted  role,  he  found  his  back  not  limber  enough 
for  bowing,  his  knees  not  sufficiently  supple  to  cringe. 
And  in  what  light  he  was  looked  upon  by  the  lazy 
pensioned  lackeys  of  the  court,  who  hardly  knew  his 
face,  and  not  at  all  his  worth,  is  shown  by  this  extract 
from  one  of  their  manuscript  chronicles:  "  Jeitdi,  Ic  15 
Octobre,  1684.  On  apprit  a  Chambord  la  mort  du  bon- 
homme  Corneille." 

Jean  Racine  came  to  Paris,  from  his  native  La 
Ferte-Milon  in  the  old  duchy  of  Valois — by  way  of 
a  school  at  Beauvais,  and  another  near  Port-Royal — 
in  1658,  a  youth  of  nineteen,  to  study  in  the  College 
d'Harcourt.    That  famous  school  was  in  the  midst  of 


i5o  THE   STONES   OF  PARIS 

the  Scholars'  Quarter,  in  that  part  of  narrow,  winding 
Rue  de  la  Harpe  which  is  now  widened  into  Boule- 
vard Saint-Michel.  On  the  site  of  the  ancient  college, 
direct  heir  of  its  functions  and  its  fame,  stands  the 
Lycee  Saint-Louis.  The  buildings  that  give  on  the 
playground  behind,  seem  to  belong  to  the  original  col- 
lege, and  to  have  been  refaced. 

Like  Boileau-Despreaux,  three  years  his  senior  here, 
the  new  student  preferred  poetry  to  the  studies  com- 
monly styled  serious,  and  his  course  in  theology  led 
neither  to  preaching  nor  to  practising.  He  was  a  wide 
and  eager  reader  in  all  directions,  and  developed  an 
early  and  ardent  enthusiasm  for  the  Greeks  and  the 
Latins. 

As  early  as  1660  he  had  made  himself  known  by  his 
ode  in  celebration  of  the  marriage  of  Louis  XIV. ; 
while  he  remained  unknown  as  the  author  of  an  unac- 
cepted and  unplayed  drama  in  verse,  sent  to  the  The- 
atre du  Marais. 

Racine's  Paris  homes  were  all  in  or  near  the  "  Pays 
Latin,"  for  he  preserves  its  ancient  appellation  in  his 
letters.  On  leaving  college,  in  1660-61,  he  took  up 
quarters  with  his  uncle  Nicolas  Vitart,  steward  and  in- 
tendant  of  the  Duchesse  de  Chevrcuse,  and  secretary  of 
her  son  the  Due  de  Luynes.  Vitart  lived  in  the  Hotel 
de  Luynes,  a  grand  mansion  that  faced  Ouai  des 
Grands-Augustins,  and  stretched  far  back  along  Rue 
Git-lc-Cccur.  It  was  torn  down  in  167 1.  La  Fontaine 
bad  lodgings,  during  his  frequent  visits  to  Paris  at  this 
period,  a  little  farther  west  on  Quai  des  Grands-Au- 


MOLIERE   AND   HIS  FRIENDS  151 

gustins,  and  he  and  Racine,  despite  the  eighteen  years' 
difference  of  age,  became  close  companions.  La  Fon- 
taine made  his  young  friend  acquainted  with  the  caba- 
rets of  the  quarter,  and  Racine  studied  them  not  un- 
willingly. Just  then,  too,  Racine  doubtless  met  Moliere, 
recently  come  into  the  management  of  the  theatre  of  the 
Palais-Royal.  An  original  edition  of  "  Les  Precieuses 
Ridicules,"  played  a  while  before  this  time  at  the  Hotel 
du  Petit-Bourbon,  bears  on  its  title-page  "  Privilege  an 
Sr.  de  Luyne."  This  was  Guillaume  de  Luyne,  book- 
seller and  publisher  in  the  Salle  des  Merciers  of  the 
Palais  de  Justice ;  and  at  his  place,  a  resort  for  book- 
loving  loungers,  we  may  well  believe  that  the  actor- 
manager  made  acquaintance  with  the  young  poet,  com- 
ing from  his  home  with  the  Due  de  Luynes,  within 
sight  across  the  narrow  arm  of  the  river. 

Not  as  a  poet  was  he  known  in  this  ducal  house,  but 
as  assistant  to  his  uncle,  and  the  probable  successor  of 
that  uncle,  who  tried  to  train  him  to  his  future  duties. 
Among  these  duties,  just  then,  was  the  construction 
of  the  new  Hotel  de  Luynes  for  the  Duchesse  de 
Chevreuse.  This  is  the  lady  who  plays  so  prominent 
a  role  in  Dumas's  authentic  history  of  "  The  Three 
Musketeers."  The  hotel  that  was  then  built  for  her 
stands,  somewhat  shorn  of  its  original  grandeur,  at 
No.  201  Boulevard  Saint-Germain,  and  you  may  look 
to-day  on  the  walls  constructed  under  the  eye  of  Jean 
Racine,  acting  as  his  uncle's  overseer.  This  uncle  was 
none  too  rigid  of  rule,  nor  was  the  household,  from 
the  duchess  down,  unduly  ascetic  of  habit ;  and  young 


1 52  THE   STONES    OF   PARIS 

Racine,  "  nothing  loath,"  spent  his  days  and  eke  his 
nights  in  somewhat  festive  fashion.  His  anxious  coun- 
try relatives  at  length  induced  him  to  leave  the  wicked 
town,  and  in  November,  1661,  he  went  to  live  at  Uzes, 
near  Nimes,  in  Languedoc.  Here  he  was  housed  with 
another  uncle,  of  another  kidney ;  a  canon  of  the  lo- 
cal cathedral,  able  to  offer  church  work  and  to  prom- 
ise church  preferment  to  the  coy  young  cleric. 

Racine  was  bored  by  it  all,  and  mitigated  his  bore- 
dom, during  the  two  years  he  remained,  only  by  flirt- 
ing and  by  stringing  rhymes.  The  ladies  were  left  be- 
hind, and  the  verses  were  carried  to  the  capital,  on  his 
return  in  November,  1663.  He  showed  some  of  them, 
first  to  Colbert  and  then  to  Moliere,  who  received  the 
verse  with  scant  praise,  but  accepted,  paid  for,  and" 
played  "  La  Thebaide  " — a  work  of  promise,  but  of  no 
more  than  promise,  of  the  future  master  hand.  It  was 
at  this  period,  about  1664,  that  Racine,  of  his  own 
wish,  first  met  Boileau,  who  had  criticised  in  a  kindly 
fashion  some  of  the  younger  poet's  verses.  Thus  was 
begun  that  friendship  which  was  to  last  unmarred  so 
many  years,  and  to  be  broken  only  by  Racine's  death. 

With  Corneille,  too,  Racine  made  acquaintance,  in 
1665,  and  submitted  to  him  his  "  Alexandre."  He  was 
greatly  pleased  by  the  praise  of  the  author  of  the 
"  Cid  " ;  praise  freely  given  to  the  poetry  of  the  play, 
but  along  with  it  came  the  set-off  that  no  talent  for 
tragedy  was  shown  in  the  piece.  It  was  not  long  before 
the  elder  poet  had  to  own  his  error,  and  it  is  a  sorrow 
to   record   his  growing  discontent   with   the   younger 


MOLIERE  AND  HIS  FRIENDS  153 

man's  triumphs.  Racine  believed  then  and  always,  that 
Corneille  was  easily  his  master  as  a  tragic  dramatist ; 
a  belief  shared  with  him  by  us  of  to-day,  who  find  Cor- 
neille's  tragedies  as  impressive,  his  comedies  as  spirited, 
as  ever,  on  the  boards  of  the  Comedie  Franchise ;  while 
Racine's  tragic  Muse  seems  to  have  outlived  her  day 
on  those  boards,  and  to  have  grown  aged  and  out  of 
date,  along  with  the  social  surroundings  amid  which 
she  queened  it. 

Racine's  reverence  for  his  elder  and  his  better  never 
wore  away,  and  on  Corneille's  death — when,  to  his 
place  in  the  Academy,  his  lesser  brother  Thomas  was 
admitted — it  fell  to  Racine,  elected  in  1673,  to  give 
the  customary  welcome  to  the  new  Academician,  and 
to  pay  the  customary  tribute  to  his  great  forerunner. 
He  paid  it  in  words  and  in  spirit  of  loyal  admiration, 
and  no  nobler  eulogy  of  a  corrival  has  been  spoken 
by  any  man. 

On  his  return  to  town,  in  1663,  Racine  had  found  his 
uncle-crony  Vitart  living  in  the  new  Hotel  de  Luynes, 
and  in  order  to  be  near  him  he  took  lodging  in  Rue  de 
Grenelle.  It  was  doubtless  at  the  eastern  end  of  that 
street,  not  far  from  the  Croix-Rouge — a  step  from  Boi- 
leau  in  Rue  du  Vieux-Colombier,  and  not  far  from  La 
Fontaine  on  Quai  Malaquais.  Here  he  stayed  for  four 
years,  and  in  1667  he  removed  to  the  Hotel  des  Ursins. 
This  name  had  belonged  to  a  grand  old  mansion  on  the 
north  bank  of  lie  de  la  Cite,  presented  by  the  City  of 
Paris  to  Jean  Juvenal  des  Ursins,  Prcvot  des  Marchands 
under  Charles  VI.     In  the  old  prints,  we  see  its  two 


154  THE   STONES    OE  rARIS 

towers  rising  sheer  from  the  river,  and  behind  them  its 
vast  buildings  and  spacious  grounds  extending  far 
away  south  on  the  island.  According  to  Edouard 
Fournier,  a  painstaking  topographer,  all  this  structure 
was  demolished  toward  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, and  over  its  site  and  through  its  grounds  were 
cut  the  three  streets  bearing  its  name  of  des  Ursins — 
Haute,  Milieu,  Basse.  Other  authorities  claim  that 
portions  of  the  hotel  still  stand  there,  among  them  that 
portion  in  which  Racine  lived ;  his  rooms  having  re- 
mained unaltered  up  to  1848.  The  street  is  narrow  and 
dark,  all  its  buildings  are  of  ancient  aspect,  and  on  its 
south  side  is  a  row  of  antiquated  houses  that  plainly 
date  back  to  Racine's  day  and  even  earlier.  It  is  in 
one  of  these  that  we  may  establish  his  lodgings. 

The  house  at  No.  5,  commonly  and  erroneously 
pointed  out  as  his  residence,  is  of  huge  bulk,  extending 
through  to  Rue  Chanoinesse  on  the  south.  No.  7  would 
seem  to  be  still  more  ancient.  No.  9  is  simply  one  wing 
of  the  dark  stone  structure,  of  which  No.  1 1  forms  the 
other  wing  and  the  central  body,  massive  and  gloomy, 
set  back  from  the  street  behind  a  shallow  court,  be- 
tween these  wings.  In  the  low  wall  of  this  court,  under 
a  great  arch,  a  small  forbidding  door  shuts  on  the  pave- 
ment, and  behind,  in  a  recess,  is  an  open  stairway  lead- 
ing to  the  floor  above.  No.  13  was  undoubtedly  once  a 
portion  of  the  same  fabric.  All  these  street  windows 
arc  heavily  barred  and  sightless.  These  three  houses 
evidently  formed  one  entire  structure  at  first,  and  this 
was  either  an  outlying  portion  of  the  Hotel  des  Ursins, 


MOLIERE   AND  HIS  FRIENDS  155 

or  a  separate  building,  erected  after  the  demolition  of 
that  hotel,  and  taking  the  old  name.  In  either  case, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  these  are  the  walls  that 
harbored  Racine.  The  tenants  of  his  day  were  mostly 
men  of  the  law  who  had  their  offices  and  residential 
chambers  here,  by  reason  of  their  proximity  to  the 
Palais  de  Justice.  With  these  inmates  Racine  was  cer- 
tainly acquainted — the  magistrates,  the  advocates,  the 
clerks,  of  whom  he  makes  knowing  sport  in  his  delight- 
ful little  comedy,  "  Les  Plaideurs."  It  was  played  at 
Versailles,  "  by  royal  command,"  before  King  and  court 
in  1668.  This  was  not  its  original  production,  however ; 
it  had  had  its  first  night  for  the  Paris  public  a  month 
earlier,  and  had  failed ;  possibly  because  it  had  not  yet 
received  royal  approval.  Moliere,  one  of  the  audience 
on  that  first  night,  was  a  more  competent  critic  of  its 
quality,  and  his  finding  was  that  "  those  who  mocked 
merited  to  be  mocked  in  turn,  for  they  did  not  know 
good  comedy  when  they  saw  it."  This  verdict  gives 
striking  proof  of  his  innate  loyalty  to  a  comrade  in 
trade,  for  he  and  the  author  were  estranged  just  then, 
not  by  any  fault  of  Moliere,  and  he  had  the  right  to  feel 
wronged,  and  by  this  unasked  praise  he  proved  himself 
to  be  the  more  manly  of  the  two. 

The  piece  was  an  immediate  success  at  Versailles. 
The  Roi  Soleil  beamed,  the  courtiers  smiled,  the  crowd 
laughed.  The  players,  unexpectedly  exultant,  climbed 
into  their  coaches  as  soon  as  they  were  free,  and  drove 
into  town  and  to  Racine,  with  their  good  news.  This 
whole  quiet  street  was  awakened  by  their  shouts  of  con- 


156  THE  STONES   OF  PARIS 

gratulation,  windows  were  thrown  open  by  the  alarmed 
burghers,  and  when  they  learned  what  it  meant,  they 
all  joined  in  the  jubilation. 

Racine  lived  here  from  1667  to  1677,  and  these  ten 
years  were  years  of  unceasing  output  and  of  unbroken 
success.  Beginning  with  his  production  of  "  Andro- 
maque "  in  the  first-named  year,  he  went,  through 
successive  stage  triumphs,  to  "  Phedre,"  his  greatest 
and  his  last  play  for  the  public  stage,  produced  on 
New  Year's  Day  of  1677,  at  the  Hotel  de  Bourgogne. 
It  was  on  these  boards  that  almost  all  his  plays  were 
first  given. 

Then,  at  the  age  of  thirty-seven,  at  the  top  of  his 
fame,  in  the  plenitude  of  his  powers,  he  suddenly 
ceased  to  write  for  the  stage.  This  dis-service  to  dra- 
matic literature  was  brought  about  by  his  forthcoming 
marriage,  by  his  disgust  with  the  malice  of  his  rivals, 
by  his  weariness  of  the  assaults  of  his  enemies,  by  his 
somewhat  sudden  and  showy  submission  to  the  Church 
— that  sleepless  assailant  of  player  and  playwright.  He 
hints  at  the  attitude  of  the  godly  in  his  preface  to 
"  Phedre,"  assuring  them  that  they  will  have  to  own 
— however,  in  other  respects,  they  may  or  may  not  es- 
teem this  tragedy — that  it  castigates  Vice  and  punishes 
Badness  as  had  no  previous  play  of  his.  Doubtless  he 
was  hardened  in  this  decision,  already  made,  by  the 
hurt  he  had  from  the  reception  of  this  play  in  contrast 
with  the  reception  of  a  poorer  play  for  which  his  own 
title  was  stolen,  which  was  produced  within  three 
nights  of  his  piece,  and  was  acclaimed  by  the  cabal  that 


MOLIERE   AMD  HIS  FRIENDS  157 

damned  the  original.  Nor  was  it  only  his  rivals  and 
enemies  who  decried  him.  "  Racine  et  le  cafe  passe- 
ront,"  was  La  Harpe's  contemptuous  coupling  of  the 
playwright  with  the  new  and  dubious  drink,  just  then 
on  its  trial  in  Paris.  His  mot  has  been  mothered  on 
Madame  de  Sevigne,  for  she,  too,  took  neither  to 
Racine  nor  to  coffee.  And  a  century  later  it  pleased 
Madame  de  Stael  to  prove,  to  her  own  gratification, 
that  his  tragedies  had  already  gone  into  the  limbo  of 
out-worn  things. 

Racine's  whole  life — never  notably  sedate  hitherto, 
with  its  frequent  escapades  and  its  one  grand  passion — 
was  turned  into  a  new  current  by  his  love  match  with 
Catherine  de  Romenet.  On  his  marriage  in  June,  1677 
— among  the  tcmoins  present  were  Boileau-Despreaux 
and  Uncle  Vitart,  this  latter  then  living  in  the  same 
house  with  his  nephew — Racine  ranged  himself  on  the 
side  of  order  and  of  domestic  days  and  nights.  He  gave 
proof  of  a  genuine  devotedness  to  his  wife;  a  good 
wife,  if  you  will,  yet  hardly  a  companion  for  him  in 
his  work  at  home  and  in  the  world  outside.  It  is  told 
of  her,  that  she  never  saw  one  of  his  pieces  played,  nor 
heard  one  read;  and  Louis,  their  youngest  son,  says 
that  his  mother  did  not  know  what  a  verse  was. 

The  earliest  home  of  the  new  couple  was  on  He 
Saint-Louis.  Neither  the  house  nor  its  street  is  to  be 
identified  to-day,  but  both  may  surely  be  seen,  so  slight 
are  the  changes  even  now  since  that  provincial  village, 
in  the  heart  of  Paris,  was  built  up  from  an  island  wash- 
house  and  wood-yard  under  the  impulse  of  the  plans 


158  THE   STONES    OF  PARIS 

prepared  for  Henri  IV.,  by  his  right  hand,  Sully.  And 
in  this  parish  church,  Saint-Louis-en-1'Ile — a  provin- 
cial church  quite  at  home  here — we  find  Racine  holding 
at  the  font  his  first  child,  Jean-Baptiste,  in  1678. 

Two  years  later  he  moved  again,  and  from  early  in 
1680  to  the  end  of  1684  we  find  him  at  No.  2  Rue  de 
l'Eperon,  on  the  corner  of  Rue  Saint-Andre-des-Arts. 
Here  his  family  grew  in  number,  and  the  names  of  three 
of  his  daughters,  Marie-Catherine,  Anne,  and  Elisa- 
beth— all  born  in  this  house — appeared  on  the  bap- 
tismal register  of  his  parish  church,  Saint-Andre- 
des-Arts.  This  was  the  church  of  the  christening  of 
Francois-Marie  Arouet,  a  few  years  later.  The  Place 
Saint-Andre-des-Arts,  laid  out  in  1809,  now  covers  the 
site  of  that  very  ancient  church,  sold  as  National  Do- 
main in  1797,  and  demolished  soon  after. 

This  residence  of  Racine  was  left  intact  until  within 
a  few  years,  when  it  was  replaced  by  the  Lycee  Fenelon, 
a  government  school  for  girls.  There  they  read  their 
"  Racine,"  or  such  portions  as  are  permitted  to  the 
Young  Person,  not  knowing  nor  caring  that  on  that 
spot  the  author  once  lived. 

From  here  he  removed,  at  the  beginning  of  the  year 
1685,  to  No.  16  Rue  des  Macons.  That  street  is  now 
named  Champollion,  and  the  present  number  of  his 
house  cannot  be  fixed.  It  still  stands  on  the  western 
side  of  the  street,  about  half  way  up  between  Rue  des 
Ecoles  and  Place  de  la  Sorbonne ;  for  none  of  these 
houses  have  been  rebuilt,  and  the  street  itself  is  as  se- 
cluded and  as  quiet  as  when  Racine  walked  through  it. 


MOLIERE    AND   HIS  FRIENDS  i5q 

Here  were  born  his  daughters  Jeanne  and  Madeleine, 
both  baptized  in  the  parish  church  of  Saint-Severin — 
a  venerable  sanctuary,  still  in  use  and  quite  unaltered, 
except  that  it  has  lost  its  cloisters.  And  in  this  home 
in  Rue  des  Masons  he  brought  to  life  two  plays  finer 
than  any  of  their  forerunners,  yet,  unlike  them,  not 
intended  for  public  performance.  "  Esther  "  was  writ- 
ten in  1689  to  please  Madame  de  Maintenon,  and  was 
performed  several  times  by  the  girls  at  her  school  of 
Saint-Cyr ;  first  before  King  and  court,  later  before 
friends  of  the  court  and  those  who  had  sufficient  influ- 
ence to  obtain  the  eagerly  sought  invitation.  "  Athalie," 
written  for  similar  semi-public  production,  two  years 
later,  failed  to  make  any  impression,  when  played  at 
Versailles  by  the  same  girls  of  Saint-Cyr.  After  two 
performances,  without  scenery  or  costumes,  it  was 
staged  no  more,  and  had  no  sale  when  published  by  the 
author.  Yet  Boileau  told  him  that  it  was  his  best  work, 
and  Voltaire  said  that  it  was  nearer  perfection  than  any 
work  of  man.  Indeed,  "  Athalie,"  in  its  grandeur  and 
its  simplicity,  may  easily  outrank  any  production  of  the 
French  pen  during  the  seventeenth  century.  And,  as 
literature,  these  two  plays  are  almost  perfect  speci- 
mens of  Racine's  almost  perfect  art  and  diction ;  of 
that  art,  wherein  he  was  so  exquisite  a  craftsman ;  of 
that  diction,  so  rich,  so  daring,  so  pliable,  so  passion- 
ate, yet  restrained,  refined,  judicious. 

In  May,  1692,  we  learn  by  a  letter  to  Boileau,  Racine 
was  still  in  Rue  des  Macons,  but  he  must  have  left  it 
shortly  after,  for  in  November  of  this  year  he  brought 


i6o  THE   STONES   OF   PARIS 


to  be  christened,  in  Saint-Sulpice,  his  youngest  child, 
Louis.  This  is  the  son  who  has  left  us  an  admirable 
biography  of  his  father,  and  some  mediocre  poems — 
"  La  Religion  "  and  "  La  Grace  "  being  those  by  which 
he  is  best  known.  So  that  Saint-Sulpice  was,  already 
in  November,  1692,  the  church  of  his  new  parish ;  and 
the  house  to  which  he  had  removed  in  that  parish, 
wherein  the  boy  was  born,  stands,  quite  unchanged  to- 
day, in  Rue  Visconti.  That  street  was  then  named  Rue 
des  Marais-Saint-Germain,  having  begun  life  as  a  coun- 
try lane  cut  through  the  low  marshy  lands  along  the 
southern  shore.  It  extends  only  from  Rue  de  Seine  to 
Rue  Bonaparte,  then  named  Rue  des  Petits-Augus- 
tins.  Near  its  western  end,  at  the  present  number 
21,  the  Marquis  de  Ranes  had  erected  a  grand  man- 
sion; and  this,  on  his  death  in  1678,  was  let  out 
in  apartments.  It  is  asserted  that  it  is  the  house  of 
whose  second  floor  Racine  became  a  tenant.  Within 
the  great  concave  archway  that  frames  the  wide  en- 
trance door  is  set  a  tablet,  containing  the  names 
of  Racine,  of  La  Champmesle,  of  Lecouvrcur,  and 
of  Clairon,  all  of  whom  are  claimed  to  have  been  in- 
habitants of  this  house.  That  tablet  has  carried  con- 
viction during  the  half-century  since  it  was  cut  and  set, 
about  1855,  but  its  word  is  to  be  doubted,  and  many 
of  us  believe  that  the  more  ancient  mansion  at  No.  13 
of  the  street  was  Racine's  home.  Local  tradition  makes 
the  only  proof  at  present,  and  the  matter  cannot  be  ab- 
solutely decided  until  the  lease  shall  be  found  in  that 
Parisian  notary's  office  where  it  is  now  filed  away  and 


Rue  Visconti. 

On  the  right  is  the  Hotel  de  Ranes,  and  in  the  distance  is  No.  13. 


AIOLIERE   AND   HIS  FRIENDS  161 

forgotten.  We  know  that  Mile.  Lecouvreur  lived  in 
the  house  formerly  tenanted  by  Racine,  and  that  she 
speaks  of  it  as  being  nearly  at  the  middle  of  the  street, 
and  this  fact  points  rather  to  No.  13  than  to  No.  21. 
And  we  know  that  Mile.  Clairon  had  tried  for  a  long 
time  to  secure  an  apartment  in  the  house  honored  by 
memories  of  the  great  dramatist  and  the  great  actress ; 
for  whose  sake  she  was  willing  to  pay  the  then  enor- 
mous rental  of  200  francs.  But  the  tablet's  claim  to 
La  Champmesle  as  a  tenant  is  an  undue  and  unpar- 
donable excess  of  zeal.  Whatever  Racine  may  have 
done  years  before  in  his  infatuation  for  that  bewitching 
woman,  he  did  not  bring  her  into  his  own  dwelling! 

She  had  come  from  Rouen,  a  young  actress  looking 
for  work,  along  with  her  husband,  a  petty  actor  and 
patcher-up  of  plays ;  for  whose  sake  she  was  admitted 
to  the  Theatre  du  Marais.  How  she  made  use  of  this 
chance  is  told  by  a  line  in  a  letter  of  Madame  de  Se- 
vigne,  who  had  seen  her  play  Atalide  in  "  Bajazet," 
and  pronounced  "  ma  belle  fille  " — so  she  brevets  her 
son's  lady-love — as  "  the  most  miraculously  good  come- 
dienne that  I  have  ever  seen."  It  was  on  the  boards 
of  the  Hotel  de  Bourgogne  that  she  showed  herself  to 
be  also  the  finest  tragedienne  of  her  time.  She  shone 
most  in  "  Bajazet,"  and  in  others  of  Racine's  plays, 
creating  her  roles  under  his  admiring  eye  and  under  his 
devoted  training.  He  himself  declaimed  verse  marvel- 
lously well,  and  had  in  him  the  making  of  a  consum- 
mate comedian,  or  a  preacher,  as  you  please.  La  Champ- 
mesle was  not  beautiful  or  clever,  but  her  stature  was 
Vol.   I.— 11. 


162  THE   STONES    OE   PARIS 

noble,  her  carriage  glorious,  her  voice  bewitching,  her 
charm  irresistible.  And  La  Fontaine  sang  praises  of 
her  esprit,  and  this  was  indeed  fitting  at  his  age  then. 
She  lived  somewhere  in  this  quarter,  when  playing  in 
the  troupe  of  the  widow  Moliere  at  the  Theatre  Guene- 
gaud.  When  she  retired  from  those  boards,  she  found 
a  home  with  her  self-effacing  husband  in  Auteuil,  and 
there  died  in  1698. 

The  first  floor  in  the  right  wing  of  the  court  of  both 
13  and  21  is  said  to  be  the  residence  of  Adrienne  Le- 
couvreur.  She  had  appeared  in  1717  at  the  Comedie 
Franchise,  in  Rue  de  l'Ancienne-Comedie,  and  had  won 
her  place  at  once.  The  choice  spirits  of  the  court,  of  the 
great  world,  of  the  greater  world  of  literature,  were 
glad  to  meet  in  fellowship  around  her  generous  arid 
joyous  table.  Among  them  she  found  excuse  for  an 
occasional  caprice,  but  her  deepest  and  most  lasting  pas- 
sion was  given  to  the  superb  adventurer,  Maurice  de 
Saxe.  His  quarters,  when  home  from  the  wars — for 
which  her  pawned  jewels  furnished  him  forth — were 
only  a  step  down  Rue  Bonaparte  from  her  house,  on 
Quai  Malaquais.  They  were  at  No.  5,  the  most  ancient 
mansion  left  on  the  quay,  with  the  exception  of  No.  1, 
hid  behind  the  wing  of  the  Institute.  He  died  at  Cham- 
bord  on  November  30,  1750,  and  at  this  house,  May  17, 
175 1,  there  was  an  auction  of  his  effects. 

There  came  a  time  when  the  meetings  of  these  two 
needed  greater  secrecy,  and  he  removed  to  Rue  de  Co 
lombier,  now  named  Rue  Jacob.  The  houses  on  the 
north  side  of  this  ancient  street  had — and  some  of  them 


MO  LI  ERE   AMD   HIS  FRIENDS  163 

still  have — gardens  running  back  to  the  gardens  of  the 
houses  on  the  south  side  of  Rue  Visconti.  These  little 
gardens  had,  in  the  dividing  fence,  gates  easily  opened 
by  night,  for  others  besides  Adrienne  and  Maurice,  as 
local  legend  whispers.  Scribe  has  put  their  story  on  the 
stage,  where  it  is  a  tradition  that  the  actress  was  actually 
poisoned  by  a  great  lady,  for  the  sake  of  the  fascinating 
lover.  He  stood  by  her  bedside,  with  Voltaire  and  the 
physician,  when  she  was  dying  in  1730,  at  the  early  age 
of  thirty-eight,  in  one  of  the  rooms  on  this  first  floor 
over  the  court.  Voltaire  had  had  no  sneers,  but  only 
praise  for  the  actress,  and  smiles  for  the  woman  whose 
kind  heart  had  brought  her  to  his  bedside,  when  he  was 
ill,  where  she  read  to  him  the  last  book  out,  the  trans- 
lation of  the  "  Arabian  Nights."  He  was  stirred  to 
stinging  invective  of  the  churlish  priest  of  Saint-Sul- 
pice,  who  denied  her  church-burial.  In  the  same  verse 
he  commends  that  good  man,  Monsieur  de  Laubiniere, 
who  gave  her  body  hasty  and  unhallowed  interment. 
He  came,  by  night,  with  two  coaches  and  three  men,  and 
drove  with  the  poor  body  along  the  river-bank,  turning 
up  Rue  de  Bourgogne  to  a  spot  behind  the  vast  wood- 
yards  that  then  lined  the  river-front.  There,  in  a  hole 
they  dug,  they  hid  her.  The  fine  old  mansion  at  No. 
115  Rue  de  Grenelle,  next  to  the  southeast  corner  of 
Rue  de  Bourgogne,  covers  her  grave.  In  its  garret, 
thrown  into  one  corner  and  almost  forgotten,  is  a  mar- 
ble tablet,  long  and  narrow,  once  set  in  a  wall  on  this 
site,  to  mark  the  spot  so  long  ignored — as  its  inscription 
says — where  lies  an  actress  of  admirable  esprit,  of  good 


1 64  THE   STONES   OF  TARIS 

heart,  and  of  a  talent  sublime  in  its  simplicity.  And 
it  recites  the  efforts  of  a  true  friendship,  which  got  at 
last  only  this  little  bit  of  earth  for  her  grave. 

Yet  a  few  years  further  on,  the  same  wing  on  the 
court  of  this  dingy  old  house  sparkled  with  the  splendid 
personality  of  Hippolyte  Clairon,  who  outshines  all 
other  stars  of  the  French  stage,  unless  it  be  Rachel. 
Here  she  lived  the  life  of  one  of  those  prodigal  prin- 
cesses, in  whose  roles  she  loved  to  dazzle  on  the  boards 
of  the  Comedie  Francaise,  where  she  first  appeared  in 
1743,  It  was  her  public  and  not  her  private  perform- 
ances that  shocked  the  sensitive  Church  into  a  threat 
of  future  terrors  for  her.  When,  in  the  course  of  a  the- 
atrical quarrel,  she  refused  to  play,  she  was  sent  to  pri- 
son, being  one  of  "  His  Majesty's  Servants,"  disobedi- 
ent and  punishable.  She  preferred  possible  purgatory 
to  present  imprisonment,  and  went  back  to  her  duty. 

To  this  house  again  came  Voltaire,  as  her  visitor 
this  time,  along  with  Diderot  and  Marmontel  and  many 
such  men.  Garrick  came,  too,  when  in  Paris — came 
quietly,  less  eager  to  proclaim  his  ardent  admiration 
for  the  woman  than  his  public  and  professional  ac- 
clamation of  the  actress  in  the  theatre.  Her  parts  all 
played,  she  left  the  stage  when  a  little  past  forty,  and, 
sinking  slowly  into  age  and  poverty  and  misery,  she 
died  at  the  age  of  eighty  in  1803. 

All  these  flashing  fireworks  art-  dimmed  and  put  to 
shame  by  the  gentle  glow  and  the  steadfast  flame  of 
the  wood-fire  on  Racine's  home  hearthstone.  It  lights 
up  the  gloomy,  mean  street,  even  as  we  stand  here. 


MOLIERE  AMD  HIS  FRIENDS  165 

He  was,  in  truth,  an  admirable  husband  and  father, 
and  it  is  this  side  of  the  man  that  we  prefer  to  regard, 
rather  than  that  side  turned  toward  other  men.  Of 
them  he  was,  through  his  over-much  ambition,  easily 
jealous,  and,  being  sensitive  and  suspicious  as  well,  and 
given  to  a  biting  raillery,  he  alienated  his  friends. 
Boileau  alone  was  too  big  of  soul  to  allow  any  es- 
trangement. These  two  were  friends  for  almost  forty 
years,  in  which  not  one  clouded  day  is  known.  The 
letters  between  them — those  from  1687  to  1698  are 
still  preserved — show  the  depth  of  Racine's  manly  and 
delicate  feeling  for  his  friend,  then  "  in  his  great  soli- 
tude at  Auteuil."  They  had  been  appointed  royal 
historiographers  soon  after  Racine's  marriage  in  1677, 
and,  in  that  office,  travelled  together  a  good  deal,  in 
the  Ghent  campaign  of  1678  and  again  with  the  army 
in  other  fields.  They  worked  together  on  their  notes 
later,  and  gathered  great  store  of  material ;  but  the  re- 
sult amounted  to  nothing,  and  they  were  posthumously 
lucky  in  that  their  unfinished  manuscript  was  finally 
burned  by  accident  in  1726. 

Whether  with  Boileau  in  camp,  or  alone  in  the  Lux- 
embourg campaign  of  1683 — Boileau  being  too  ill  to 
go — or  at  Namur  in  1692,  or  with  the  King  and  court 
at  Fontainebleau,  Marly,  Versailles,  in  these  royal 
residences  where  he  had  his  own  rooms,  wherever  he 
was,  Racine  never  seemed  to  cease  thinking  of  his 
home,  that  home  in  Rue  des  Macons  when  he  first 
went  away,  and  for  the  last  seven  years  of  his  life  in 
Rue  Visconti.     When  absent  from  home  he  wrote  to 


166  THE   STONES   OF  PARIS 

his  children  frequently,  and  when  here  he  corresponded 
constantly  with  his  son,  who  was  with  the  French  Em- 
bassy at  The  Hague.  To  him  he  gave  domestic  details 
and  "  trivial  fond  records  "  of  what  his  mother  was 
doing,  of  the  colds  of  the  younger  ones,  and  of  the 
doings  of  the  daughter  in  a  convent  at  Melun.  He 
sends  to  this  son  two  new  hats  and  eleven  and  a  half 
louis  d'or,  and  begs  him  to  be  careful  of  the  hats  and 
to  spend  the  money  slowly. 

Yet  he  was  fond  of  court  life,  and,  an  adroit  courtier, 
he  knew  how  to  sing  royal  prowess  in  the  field  and 
royal  splendor  in  the  palace.  He  had  a  way  of  carry- 
ing himself  that  gave  seeming  height  to  his  slight 
stature.  His  noble  and  open  expression,  his  fine  wit, 
his  dexterous  address,  his  notable  gifts  as  a  reader  to- 
the  King  at  his  bedside,  made  him  a  favorite  in  that 
resplendent  circle.  And  he  was  all  the  more  unduly  de- 
jected when  the  Roi  Soldi  cooled  and  no  longer  smiled 
on  him ;  he  was  killed  when  Madame  de  Maintenon 
— "  Goody  Scarron,"  "  Old  Piety,"  "  the  hag,"  "  the 
hussy,"  "  that  old  woman,"  are  the  usual  pet  epithets 
for  her  of  delicious  Duchesse  d'Orleans — who  had 
liked  and  had  befriended  him,  saw  the  policy  of  show- 
ing him  her  cold  shoulder,  as  she  had  shown  it  to 
Fenelon.  From  this  shock,  Racine,  being  already 
broken  physically  by  age  and  illness,  seemed  unable 
to  rally.  As  he  sank  gradually  to  the  grave  he  made 
sedulous  provision  for  his  family,  dictating,  toward 
the  last,  a  letter  begging  for  a  continuance  of  his  pen- 
sion to  his  widow,  which,  it  is  gladly  noted,  was  after- 


MOLJERE  AND  HIS  FRIENDS  167 

ward  done.  He  urged,  also,  the  claim  of  Boileau  to 
royal  favor:  "  We  must  not  be  separated,"  he  said  to 
his  amanuensis ;  "  begin  your  letter  again,  and  let 
Boileau  know  that  I  have  been  his  friend  to  my  death." 
His  death  came  on  April  21,  1699.  His  body  lay 
one  night  in  the  choir  of  Saint-Sulpice,  his  parish 
church,  and  then  it  was  carried  for  burial  to  the  Abbey 
of  Port-Royal.  On  the  destruction  of  that  institution, 
his  remains  were  brought  back  to  Paris,  in  171 1,  and 
placed  near  those  of  Pascal,  at  the  entrance  of  the  lady- 
chapel  of  Saint-Etienne-du-Mont.  Racine's  epitaph, 
in  Latin,  by  Boileau,  the  friend  of  so  many  men  who 
were  not  always  friendly  with  one  another,  is  cut  in  a 
stone  set  in  the  first  pillar  of  the  southern  aisle  of  the 
choir. 

Jean  de  la  Fontaine  began  to  come  to  Paris,  mak- 
ing occasional  excursions  from  his  native  Chateau- 
Thierry,  in  Champagne,  toward  1654,  he  being  then 
over  thirty  years  of  age.  A  little  later,  when  under 
the  protection  and  in  the  pay  of  the  great  Fouquet, 
his  visits  to  the  capital  were  more  frequent  and  more 
prolonged.  He  commonly  found  lodgings  on  Quai 
des  Grands-Augustins,  just  around  the  corner  from 
young  Racine,  and  the  two  men  were  much  together 
during  the  years  1660  and  1661.  La  Fontaine  made 
his  home  permanently  in  the  capital  after  1664,  when 
he  arrived  there  in  the  train  of  the  Duchesse  de  Bou- 
illon, born  Anne  Mancini,  youngest  and  liveliest  of 
Mazarin's  many  dashing  nieces.     Her  marriage  with 


1 68  THE   STONES    OF   PARIS 

the  Due  de  Bouillon  had  made  her  the  feudal  lady  of 
Chateau-Thierry,  and  if  she  were  not  compelled  to 
claim,  in  this  case,  her  privilege  as  chatelaine  over  her 
appanage,  it  was  because  there  was  ampler  mandate 
for  the  impressionable  poet  in  the  caprice  of  a  wilful 
woman.  Incidentally,  in  this  flitting,  he  left  behind 
his  provincial  wife.  He  had  taken  her  to  wife  in  1647, 
mainly  to  please  his  father,  and  soon,  to  please  her 
and  himself,  they  had  agreed  on  a  separation.  They 
met  scarcely  any  more  after  his  definite  departure. 
There  is  a  tradition  that  he  chatted,  once  in  a  salon 
somewhere,  with  a  bright  young  man  by  whom  he 
found  himself  attracted,  and  concerning  whom  he 
made  inquiry  of  the  bystanders,  who  informed  him 
that  it  was  his  son.  Tradition  does  not  record  any 
attempt  on  his  part  to  improve  his  acquaintance  with 
the  young  stranger,  or  to  show  further  interest  in  his 
welfare. 

He  did  not  entirely  desert  his  country  home,  for 
the  duchess  carried  him  along  on  her  autumnal  visits 
to  Chateau-Thierry.  He  took  advantage  of  each 
chance  thus  given  him  to  realize  something  upon  his 
patrimony,  that  he  might  meet  the  always  pressing 
claims  on  his  always  overspent  income. 

He  writes  to  Racine  during  one  of  these  visits,  in 
1686:  "  My  affairs  occupy  me  as  much  as  they're  worth 
it,  and  that's  not  at  all ;  and  the  leisure  I  thus  get  is 
given  to  laziness."  He  almost  anticipated  in  regard  to 
himself  the  racy  saying  of  the  Oxford  don  of  our  day 
of  another  professor:  "  Such  time  as  he  can  save  from 


MOLIERE  AND  HIS  FRIENDS  169 

the  adornment  of  his  person  he  devotes  to  the  neglect 
of  his  duties."  But  La  Fontaine  neglected  not  only 
his  duties  all  through  life,  but,  more  than  all  else,  did 
he  neglect  the  care  of  his  dress.  A  portion  of  the  in- 
come he  was  always  anticipating  came  from  his  salary 
at  one  time,  as  gentleman  in  the  suite  of  the  dowager 
Duchesse  d'Orleans,  that  post  giving  him  quarters  in 
the  Luxembourg.  These  quarters  and  his  salary  went 
from  him  with  her  death.  For  several  years  after 
coming  to  town  with  the  Duchesse  de  Bouillon  he  had 
a  home  in  the  duke's  town-house  on  Quai  Malaquais. 

This  quay  had  been  built  upon  the  river-front  soon 
after  the  death,  in  161 5,  of  Marguerite  de  Valois, 
Henri  IV.'s  divorced  wife.  The  streets  leading  from 
Quais  Malaquais  and  Voltaire,  and  those  behind,  paral- 
lel with  the  quays,  were  cut  through  her  grounds  and 
through  the  fields  farther  west.  This  was  the  begin- 
ning of  the  Faubourg  Saint-Germain.  To  save  the 
long  detour,  to  and  from  the  new  suburb,  around  by 
way  of  Pont-Neuf,  a  wooden  bridge  was  built  in  1632 
along  the  line  of  the  ferry,  that  had  hitherto  served 
for  traffic  between  the  shore  in  front  of  the  Louvre 
and  the  southern  shore,  at  the  end  of  the  road  that  is 
now  Rue  du  Bac.  The  Pont  Royal  has  replaced  that 
wooden  bridge.  One  of  the  buildings  that  began  this 
river-front  remains  unmutilated  at  the  corner  of  Quai 
Malaquais  and  Rue  de  Seine,  and  is  characteristic  of 
the  architecture  of  that  period  in  its  walls  and  roofs 
and  windows  clustering  about  the  court.  It  was  the 
many  years'  dwelling  of  the  elder  Visconti,  and  his 


170  THE   STONES   OF  PARIS 

death-place  in  1818.  The  house  at  No.  3  was  erected 
early  in  the  nineteenth  century,  on  the  site  of  Buzot's 
residence,  as  shall  be  told  in  a  later  chapter.  In  it 
Humboldt  lived  from  18 15  to  1818.  The  associations 
of  No.  5  have  already  been  suggested.  The  largest 
builder  on  the  quay  was  Cardinal  Mazarin,  whose  col- 
lege, to  which  he  gave  his  own  name,  and  to  which 
the  public  gave  the  name  College  des  Quatre-Nations, 
is  now  the  Palais  de  lTnstitut.  He  paid  for  it  with 
money  wrung  from  wretched  France,  as  he  so  paid 
for  the  grand  hotel  he  erected  for  another  niece,  Anne 
Marie  Martinozzi,  widow  of  that  Prince  de  Conti  who 
was  Moliere's  school  friend.  On  the  ground  that  it 
covered  was  built,  in  1860-62,  the  wing  of  the  Beaux- 
Arts  at  Nos.  11  and  13  Quai  Malaquais.  That  school" 
has  also  taken  possession  of  the  Hotel  de  Bouillon  of 
the  cardinal's  other  niece,  almost  alongside.  It  had 
been  the  property  of  the  rich  and  vulgar  money-king 
Baziniere,  whom  we  shall  meet  again,  and  he  had  sold 
it  to  the  Due  de  Bouillon.  The  pretty  wife  of  this 
very  near-sighted  husband  had  the  house  re-decorated, 
and  filled  it  with  a  marvellous  collection  of  furniture, 
paintings,  bric-a-brac.  She  filled  it,  also,  by  her  open 
table  twice  a  day,  with  thick-coming  guests,  some  of 
whom  were  worth  knowing.  The  hotel  came  by  in- 
heritance in  1823  to  M.  de  Chimay,  who  stipulated,  in 
making  it  over  to  the  Beaux- Arts,  in  1885,  that  its 
seventeenth-century  facade  should  be  preserved,  and 
by  this  agreement  we  have  here,  at  No.  17  Quai  Mala- 
quais, an  admirable  specimen  of  the  competence  of  the 


MO  LI  ERF.    AND   HIS   FRIENDS  171 

elder,  the  great  Mansart.  It  is  higher  than  he  left  it, 
by  reason  of  the  wide,  sloping  roof,  with  many  sky- 
lights toward  the  north,  placed  there  for  the  studios 
within,  but  its  two  well-proportioned  wings  remain 
unchanged,  and  between  them  the  court,  where  La 
Fontaine  was  wont  to  sit  or  stroll,  has  been  laid  out 
as  a  garden.  While  living  here  he  brought  out  the 
first  collection  of  his  "  Contes  "  in  1665,  and  of  his 
"  Fables  "  in  1668.  His  "  Les  Amours  de  Psyche," 
written  in  1669,  begins  with  a  charming  description 
of  the  meetings  in  Boileau's  rooms  of  the  famous 
group  of  comrades. 

From  this  home  he  went  to  the  home  of  Madame  de 
la  Sabliere,  with  whom,  about  1672,  he  had  formed 
a  friendship  which  lasted  unbroken  until  her  death. 
This  tender  and  steadfast  companionship  made  the 
truest  happiness  of  La  Fontaine's  life.  For  twenty 
years  an  inmate  of  her  household,  a  member  of  her 
family,  he  was  petted  and  cared  for  as  he  craved.  In 
her  declining  years  she  had  to  be  away  from  home  at- 
tending to  her  charitable  work — for  she  followed  the 
fashion  of  turning  devote  as  age  advanced — and  then 
he  suffered  in  unaccustomed  loneliness.  His  tongue 
spoke  of  her  with  the  same  constant  admiration  and 
gratitude  that  is  left  on  record  by  his  pen,  and  at  her 
death  he  was  completely  crushed. 

When  he  was  invited  by  Madame  de  la  Sabliere  and 
her  poet-husband  to  share  their  home,  they  were  liv- 
ing at  their  country-place,  "  La  Folie  Ramboiiillet," 
not  to  be  mistaken  for  the  Hotel  de  Rambouillet.    Sa- 


172  THE   STONES    OF  PARIS 

bliere's  hotel,  built  by  his  father,  a  wealthy  banker, 
was  in  the  suburb  of  Reuilly,  on  the  Bercy  road,  north 
of  the  Seine,  not  far  from  Picpus.  The  Reuilly  station 
and  the  freight-houses  of  the  Vincennes  railway  now 
cover  the  site  of  this  splendid  mansion  and  its  exten- 
sive grounds.  Here  Monsieur  de  la  Sabliere  died  in 
1680,  and  his  widow,  taking  La  Fontaine  along,  re- 
moved to  her  town-house.  This  stood  on  the  ground 
now  occupied  by  the  buildings  in  Rue  Saint-Honore, 
nearly  opposite  Rue  de  la  Sourdiere.  In  the  court  of 
No.  203  are  bits  of  carving  that  may  have  come  down 
from  the  original  mansion.  Here  they  dwelt  un- 
troubled until  death  took  her  away  in  1693.  It  is  re- 
lated that  La  Fontaine,  leaving  this  house  after  the 
funeral,  benumbed  and  bewildered  by  the  blow,  met. 
Monsieur  d'Hervart.  "  I  was  going,"  said  that  gen- 
tleman, "  to  offer  you  a  home  with  me."  "  I  was  going 
to  ask  it,"  was  the  reply.  And  in  this  new  abode  he 
dwelt  until  his  death,  two  years  later. 

Berthelemy  d'Hervart,  a  man  of  great  wealth,  had 
purchased,  in  1657,  tne  Hotel  de  l'Eperon,  a  mansion 
erected  on  the  site  of  Burgundy's  Hotel  de  Flandre. 
M.  d'Hervart  had  enlarged  and  decorated  his  new 
abode,  employing  for  the  interior  frescoes  the  painter 
Mignard,  Moliere's  friend.  The  actor  and  his  troupe 
had  played  here,  by  invitation,  nearly  fifty  years  be- 
fore La  Fontaine's  coming.  It  stood  in  old  Rue  Pla- 
triere,  now  widened  out,  entirely  rebuilt,  and  renamed 
Rue  Jean-Jacques-Rousseau ;  and  on  the  wall  of  the 
Central  Post-office  that  faces  that  street,  you  will  find 


MO  LI  ERE  AND  HIS  FRIENDS  173 

a  tablet  stating  that  on  this  site  died  Jean  de  la  Fon- 
taine on  April  13,  1695. 

Madame  d'Hervart  was  a  young  and  lovely  woman, 
and  as  devoted  to  the  old  poet  as  had  been  Madame 
de  la  Sabliere.  She  went  so  far  as  to  try  to  regulate 
his  dress,  his  expenditure,  and  his  morals.  Congratu- 
lated one  day  on  the  splendor  of  his  coat,  La  Fontaine 
found  to  his  surprise  and  delight  that  his  hostess  had 
substituted  it — when,  he  had  not  noticed — for  the 
shabby  old  garment  that  he  had  been  wearing  for  years. 
She  and  her  husband  held  sacred,  always,  the  room 
in  which  La  Fontaine  died,  showing  it  to  their  friends 
as  a  place  worthy  of  reverence. 

He  was  buried  in  the  Cemetery  of  Saints-Innocents, 
now  all  built  over  except  its  very  centre,  which  is  kept 
as  a  small  park  about  the  attractive  fountain  of  Saints- 
Innocents.  The  Patriots  of  the  Revolution,  slaying  so 
briskly  their  men  of  birth,  paused  awhile  to  bring  from 
their  graves  what  was  left  of  their  men  of  brains. 
Misled  by  inaccurate  rumor,  they  left  La  Fontaine's 
remains  in  their  own  burial-ground,  and  removed  what 
they  believed  to  be  his  bones  from  the  graveyard  of 
Saint-Joseph,  where  he  had  not  been  buried,  along 
with  the  bones  they  believed  to  be  those  of  Moliere, 
who  had  been  buried  there.  These  casual  and  dubious 
remains  were  kept  in  safety  in  the  convent  of  Petits- 
Augustins  in  present  Rue  Bonaparte,  until,  in  the  early 
years  of  the  nineteenth  century,  they  were  removed 
for  final  sepulture  to  Pere-Lachaise. 

No  literary  man  of  his  time — perhaps  of  any  time — 


174  THE   STONES   OF   PARIS 

was  so  widely  known  and  so  well  beloved  as  La  Fon- 
taine. He  attracted  men,  not  only  the  best  in  his  own 
guild,  but  the  highest  in  the  State  and  in  affairs.  Men 
various  in  character,  pursuits,  station,  were  equally 
attached  to  him ;  the  great  Conde  was  glad  to  receive 
him  as  a  frequent  guest  at  Chantilly ;  the  superfine 
sensualist,  Saint-Evremond,  in  exile  in  England,  urged 
him  to  come  to  visit  him  and  to  meet  Waller.  He 
nearly  undertook  the  journey,  less  to  see  Saint-Evre- 
mond and  to  know  Waller,  than  to  follow  his  Duchesse 
de  Bouillon,  visiting  her  sister,  the  Duchess  of  Mazarin, 
in  her  Chelsea  home.  It  was  at  this  time  that  Ninon 
de  Lenclos  wrote  to  Saint-Evremond:  "  You  wish  La 
Fontaine  in  England.  We  have  little  of  his  company 
in  Paris.     His  understanding  is  much  impaired." 

Racine,  eighteen  years  his  junior,  looked  up  to  La 
Fontaine  as  a  critic,  a  counsellor,  and  a  friend,  from 
their  early  days  together  in  1660,  through  long  years 
of  intimacy,  until  he  stood  beside  La  Fontaine's  bed 
in  his  last  illness.  He  even  took  an  odd  pleasure  in 
finding  that  he  and  La  Fontaine's  deserted  country 
wife  had  sprung  from  the  same  provincial  stock. 
Moliere  first  met  La  Fontaine  at  Vaux,  the  more  than 
royal  residence  of  Fouquet,  at  the  time  of  the  royal 
visit  in  1661.  La  Fontaine  wrote  a  graceful  bit  of 
verse  in  praise  of  the  author  of  "  Les  Fachcux,"  played 
for  the  first  time  before  King  and  court  during  these 
festivities,  and  the  two  men,  absolutely  opposed  in  es- 
sential qualities,  were  fast  friends  from  that  time  on. 
"  They  make  fun  of  the  bonJwmmc,"  said  the  ungrudg- 


MO  LI  ERE   AND   HIS   FRIENDS  175 

ing  player  once,  "  and  our  clever  fellows  think  they  can 
efface  him ;   but  he'll  efface  us  all  yet." 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  La  Fontaine  was  beloved 
by  Boileau,  the  all-loving.  That  kindly  ascetic  was 
moved  to  attempt  the  amendment  of  his  friend's  laxity 
of  life,  and  to  this  blameless  end  dragged  him  to 
prayers  sometimes,  where  La  Fontaine  was  bored  and 
would  take  up  any  book  at  hand  to  beguile  the  time. 
In  this  way  he  made  acquaintance  with  the  Apocrypha, 
and  became  intensely  interested  in  Baruch,  and  asked 
Boileau  if  he  knew  Baruch,  and  urged  him  to  read 
Baruch,  as  a  hitherto  undiscovered  genius.  During 
his  last  illness,  he  told  the  attendant  priest  that  he  had 
been  reading  the  New  Testament,  and  that  he  regarded 
it  as  a  good,  a  very  good  book. 

In  truth,  his  soul  was  the  soul  of  a  child,  and,  child- 
like, he  lived  in  a  world  of  his  own — a  world  peopled 
with  the  animals  and  the  plants  and  the  inanimate 
objects,  made  alive  by  him  and  almost  human.  He 
loved  them  all,  and  painted  them  with  swift,  telling 
strokes  of  his  facile  pen.  The  acute  Taine  points  out 
that  the  brute  creations  of  this  poet  are  prototypes  of 
every  class  and  every  profession  of  his  country  and  his 
time.  His  dumb  favorites  attracted  him  especially  by 
their  unspoiled  simplicity,  for  he  loathed  the  artificial 
existence  of  his  fellow-creatures.  With  "  a  sullen 
irony  and  a  desperate  resignation  "  he  let  himself  be 
led  into  society,  and  he  was  bored  beyond  bearing  by 
its  high-heeled  decorum.  It  is  said  that  he  cherished, 
all  his  life  long,  a  speechless  exasperation  with  the 


176  THE   STONES   OF  PARIS 

King,  that  incarnation  of  pomposity  and  pretence  to 
his  untamed  Gallic  spirit.  Yet  this  malcontent  had  to 
put  on  the  livery  of  his  fellow-flunkies,  and  his  dedi- 
cation, to  the  Dauphin,  of  his  "  Fables,"  is  as  fulsome 
and  servile  as  any  specimen  of  sycophancy  of  that  toad- 
eating  age. 

Yet,  able  to  make  trees  and  stones  talk,  he  himself 
could  not  talk,  La  Bruyere  tells  us ;  coloring  his  por- 
traiture strongly,  as  was  his  way,  and  rendering  La 
Fontaine  much  too  heavy  and  dull,  with  none  of  the 
skill  in  description  with  his  tongue  that  he  had  with 
his  pen.  He  may  be  likened  to  Goldsmith,  who  "  wrote 
like  an  angel  and  talked  like  poor  Poll."  Madame  de 
Sabliere  said  to  him:  "  Mon  bon  ami,  que  vons  series 
bete,  si  vous  n'avies  pas  taut  d 'esprit!  "  Louis  Racine, 
owning  to  the  lovable  nature  of  the  man,  has  to  own, 
too,  that  he  gave  poor  account  of  himself  in  society, 
and  adds  that  his  sisters,  who  in  their  youth  had  seen 
the  poet  frequently  at  their  father's  table  in  Rue  Vis- 
conti,  recalled  him  only  as  a  man  untidy  in  dress  and 
stupid  in  talk.  He  gave  this  impression  mainly  be- 
cause he  was  forever  dreaming,  even  in  company,  and 
so  seemed  distant  and  dull ;  but,  when  drawn  out  of 
his  dreams,  no  man  could  be  more  animated  and  more 
delightful. 

So  he  was  found  by  congenial  men,  and  so  especially 
by  approving  women.  These  took  to  him  on  the  spot, 
women  of  beauty  and  of  wit,  and  women  common- 
place enough.  To  them  all  his  prattle  was  captivating, 
devoid  as  it  was  of  the  grossness  so  conspicuous  in  his 


La  Fontaine. 

(From  the  portrait  by   Rigaud-y-Ros.) 


MO  LI  ERE  AND  HIS  FRIENDS  177 

poems.  He  depended  on  women  in  every  way  all 
through  his  life ;  they  catered  to  his  daily  needs,  and 
they  provided  for  his  higher  wants ;  they  helped  him 
in  his  money  troubles,  they  helped  him  in  all  his  troub- 
les. And  he  requited  each  one's  care  with  a  genuine 
affection,  not  only  at  the  time,  but  for  all  time,  in  the 
record  he  has  left  of  his  gratitude  and  his  devotion  to 
these  ministering  women.  His  verse  is  an  unconscious 
chronicle  of  his  loves,  his  caprices,  his  inconstancies, 
and  his  loyalties.  Nor  did  a  woman  need  to  be  clever 
and  cultivated  to  be  bewitched  by  his  inborn,  simple 
sweetness.  A  matter-of-fact  nurse,  hired  to  attend 
him  during  an  illness  which  came  near  being  fatal,  said 
to  the  attending  priest :  "  Surely,  God  could  not  have 
the  courage  to  damn  a  man  like  that." 

This  memory  he  has  left  is  brought  pleasantly  home 
to  the  passer-by  in  Rue  de  Grenelle  by  the  sign  of  a 
hotel,  a  quiet  clerical  house,  frequented  by  churchmen 
and  church-loving  provincials  visiting  Paris.  The 
sign  bears  the  name  "  Au  bon  La  Fontaine/'  in  strik- 
ing proof  of  the  permanent  place  in  the  common  heart 
won  by  this  lovable  man. 

He  was  content  to  drift  through  life,  his  days  spent, 
as  he  put  it  in  his  epitaph  on  "  Jean,"  one-half  in  doing 
nothing,  the  other  half  in  sleeping.  He  had  no  li- 
brary or  study  or  workroom,  like  other  pen-workers ; 
he  lived  out  of  doors  in  the  open  air,  and  wandered 
vaguely,  tasting  blameless  epicurean  delights.  Some 
of  us  seem  to  see,  always  in  going  along  Cours  la 

Reine,  that  quaint  figure,  comical  and  pathetic,  as  he 
Vol.  I. — 12. 


178  THE   STONES    OF  PARIS 

was  seen  by  the  Duchesse  de  Bouillon  on  a  rainy  morn- 
ing, when  she  drove  to  Versailles.  He  was  standing 
under  a  tree  on  this  wooded  water-side,  and  on  her 
return  on  that  rainy  evening  he  was  standing  under 
the  same  tree.  He  had  dreamed  away  the  long  day 
there,  not  knowing  or  not  caring  that  he  was  wet.  He 
explained,  once  when  he  came  late — inexcusably  late — 
to  a  dinner,  that  he  had  been  watching  a  procession  of 
ants  in  a  field,  and  had  found  that  it  was  a  funeral ; 
he  had  accompanied  the  cortege  to  the  grave  in  the 
garden,  and  had  then  escorted  the  bereaved  family 
back  to  its  home,  as  bound  by  courtesy. 

This  genuine  poet,  of  dry,  sly  humor  and  of  un- 
equalled suppleness  of  phrase,  was  by  nature  a  gentle, 
wild  creature,  and  by  habit  a  docile,  domesticated  pet," 
attaching  himself  to  any  amiable  woman  who  was  will- 
ing to  give  him  a  warm  corner  in  her  heart  and  her 
house.  And  how  such  women  looked  on  him  was 
prettily  and  wittily  put  by  one  of  them :  "  He  isn't  a 
man,  he  is  a  fablicr" — a  natural  product  of  her  own 
sudden  inspiration — "  who  blossoms  out  into  fables  as 
a  tree  blossoms  out  with  leaves." 

Nicolas  Boileau  began  his  acquaintance  with  Mo- 
liere  by  his  tribute  of  four  dainty  verses  to  the  author 
of  "  L'Ecole  des  Femmes,"  and  the  friendship  thus 
formed  was  broken  only  by  the  death  of  Moliere,  to 
whose  memory  Boileau  inserted  his  magnificent  lines 
in  the  "  Epitre  a  Monsieur  Racine."  It  was  Boileau 
who  criticised  the  early   verse  of  young  Racine,  so 


MOLIEKR   AND   I/IS  FRIENDS  179 

justly  and  so  gently,  that  the  two  men  were  drawn  to- 
gether in  an  amity  that  was  never  marred.  It  was 
Boileau  who,  after  nearly  forty  years  of  finding  him 
out  by  the  distrustful  Racine,  was  acknowledged  to 
be  "  noble  and  full  of  friendship."  It  was  Boileau 
who  sang  without  cessation  praises  of  Racine  to  Louis 
XIV.,  and  who  startled  the  nimble  mediocrity  of  his 
majesty's  mind  by  the  assertion  that  Moliere  was  the 
rarest  genius  of  the  Grand  Monarch's  reign  and  realm. 
It  was  Boileau  who  made,  in  his  fondness  for  La  Fon- 
taine, the  unhappy  and  hopeless  attempt  to  reform 
his  friend's  loose  living,  and  in  so  doing  nearly  led  to 
the  undoing  of  La  Fontaine's  goodwill  for  him.  It 
was  Boileau,  prompted  by  compassion  for  Corneille's 
impoverished  old  age,  who  offered  to  surrender  his 
own  pension  in  favor  of  the  distressed  veteran  of  let- 
ters. It  was  Boileau  who  found  Patru  forced  to  sell 
his  cherished  books  that  he  might  get  food,  and  it 
was  Boileau  who  bought  them,  on  condition  that  Patru 
should  keep  them  and  look  after  them  for  their  new 
owner.  It  was  Boileau  who  tried  to  work  a  miracle 
in  his  comrade  Chapelle  by  weaning  him  from  his 
wine-bibbing;  and  when  Chapelle  found  the  lecture 
dry,  and  would  listen  to  it  only  over  a  bottle  or  two, 
it  was  Boileau  who  came  out  of  the  cabaret  the  tipsier 
of  the  pair.  It  was  Boileau  who  was  known  to  every 
man  who  knew  him  at  all — and  he  was  known  to  many 
men  of  merit  and  demerit — as  a  loyal,  sincere,  helpful, 
unselfish  friend.  It  was  of  Boileau  that  a  perplexed 
woman  in  the  great  throng  at  his  burial  said,  in  the 


180  THE   STONES   OF  PARIS 

hearing  of  young  Louis  Racine :  "  He  seems  to  have 
lots  of  friends,  and  yet  somebody  told  me  that  he 
wrote  bad  things  about  everybody." 

Those  friends  could  have  explained  the  puzzle.  They 
mourned  the  indulgent  comrade  who  was  doubled  with 
the  stern  satirist.  The  man,  so  rigid  in  morals  and 
austere  of  life,  was  tolerant  to  the  foibles  of  his  friends, 
tender  in  their  troubles,  open-handed  for  their  needs. 
The  writer,  so  exacting  in  his  standard  and  severe  in 
his  judgment,  was  cruel  only  with  his  pen.  Trained 
critic  in  verse,  rather  than  inspired  poet,  Boileau 
had  an  enthusiasm  for  good  work  in  others  equal  to 
his  intolerance  of  bad.  He  loathed  the  powdered 
and  perfumed  minauderies  of  the  drawing-room  poet- 
asters, and  he  loved  the  swift  and  sure  stroke  of 
Moliere's  "  rare  et  famcax  esprit."  It  was  in  frank 
admiration  that  he  demanded  of  his  friend :  "  Enseigne- 
moi  oil  tit  tr  onvcs  la  rime  I"  For  this  impeccable  ar- 
tist in  words,  who  has  left  his  profession  of  faith  in 
the  power  of  a  word  in  its  right  place,  had  to  reset 
and  recast,  file  and  polish,  to  get  the  perfection  he 
craved.  And  so  this  bountiful  admirer  was  easily 
an  unsparing  censor.  Sincere  in  letters  as  in  life,  he 
insisted  on  equal  sincerity  from  his  fellow-workers, 
and  would  not  let  them  spare  their  toil  or  scamp  their 
stint.  He  watched  and  warned  them;  his  reproof  and 
his  approval  brought  out  better  work  from  them ;  and 
he  may  well  be  entitled  the  Police  President  of  Par- 
nassus of  his  country  and  his  day. 

Boileau's  sturdy  uprightness  of  spine  stood  him  in 


M0L1ERE  AND  HIS  FRIENDS 


good  stead  in  that  great  court  where  all  men  grew 
sleek  and  servile,  and  where  no  pen-worker  seemed 
able  to  escape  becoming  a  courtier.  His  caustic  au- 
dacity salted  his  sycophancy  and  made  him  a  man  apart 
from  the  herd  of  flatterers.  His  thrust  was  so  suave, 
as  well  as  sharp,  that  the  spoiled  monarch  himself  ac- 
cepted admonition  from  that  courageous  cleverness. 
"  I  am  having  search  made  in  every  direction  for  Mon- 
sieur Arnauld,"  said  Louis,  when  eager  in  his  pursuit 
of  the  Jansenists.  "  Your  Majesty  is  always  fortunate ; 
you  will  not  find  him,"  was  Boileau's  quick  retort, 
received  with  a  smile  by  the  King.  When  money 
was  needed  for  Dr.  Perrault's  new  eastern  faqade  of 
the  Louvre  and  for  its  other  alterations,  the  King 
naturally  economized  in  the  incomes  of  other  men. 
The  pensions  of  literary  men — in  many  instances  the 
sole  source  of  their  livelihood — were  allowed  to  lapse ; 
that  of  Boileau  was  continued  by  an  order  that  his 
name  should  be  entered  on  the  Louvre  pay-roll  as  "  an 
architect  paid  for  mason's  work."  His  mordant  reply 
to  the  questioning  pay-clerk  was :  "  Yes,  I  am  a  ma- 
son." His  masonry  in  the  stately  fabric  of  French 
literature  stands  unmarred  to-day ;  coldly  correct,  it 
may  be,  yet  elegant,  faultless,  consummate. 

Nicolas  Boileau-Despreaux  was  long  believed  to 
have  been  born  in  the  country  and  to  have  played  in 
the  fields  as  a  child,  and  so  to  have  got  his  added  name 
dcs  prcanx;  but  it  is  now  made  certain  that  the  house 
of  his  birth,  in  1636,  was  in  Rue  de  Jerusalem,  a  street 
that  led  to  the  Sainte-Chapelle,  from  about  the  middle 


1 82  THE   STONES    OE   PARIS 

of  the  present  Quai  des  Orfevres.  The  only  field  he 
knew  lay  at  the  foot  of  his  father's  garden  at  Crosne, 
where  the  lad  was  sometimes  taken.  Fields  and  gar- 
dens had  never  anything  to  say  to  this  born  cockney, 
and  there  is  not  a  sniff  of  real  country  air  in  all  his 
verse.  The  street  of  his  birth  was  one  of  the  narrow, 
dark  streets  of  oldest  Paris,  on  lie  de  la  Cite ;  and 
the  house,  tall  and  thin,  had  its  gable  end  on  the  court 
of  the  old  Palais  de  Justice.  The  earliest  air  breathed 
by  this  baby  was  charged  with  satire,  it  would  seem. 
For  the  room  of  his  birth  had  been  occupied,  nearly 
half  a  century  earlier,  by  Jacques  Gillot,  the  brilliant 
canon  of  Sainte-Chapelle.  In  this  room  assembled  in 
secret  that  clever  band  of  talkers  and  writers,  who 
planned  and  wrote  "  La  Menippee  " ;  the  first  really 
telling  piece  of  French  political  satire,  so  telling,  in  its 
unbridled  buffoonery,  that  it  gave  spirit  to  the  arms 
that  shattered  the  League,  and  helped  to  put  Henry 
of  Navarre  on  the  throne  of  France. 

After  his  father's  death,  young  Nicolas  kept  his 
home  with  his  elder  brother  Jerome,  who  had  suc- 
ceeded to  the  paternal  mansion,  and  who  gave  the  boy 
a  sort  of  watch-tower,  built  above  the  garrets,  in  which 
he  could  hardly  stand  upright.  The  house,  the  court, 
the  old  palace,  were  long  since  swept  away,  and  with 
them  went  all  the  melodramatic  stage-setting  of  Hu- 
go's "  Notre-Dame  de  Paris  "  and  Sue's  "  Mysteres  de 
Paris."  Only  the  Sainte-Chapelle  is  left  of  the  scenes 
of  Boileau's  early  years. 

lie   was   sent    for   a   while   to   College   d'ilarcourt, 


MOLIERE   AND   HIS  FRIENDS  183 

where  young  Racine  came  a  little  later,  and  was  then 
put  to  the  study  of  law,  the  family  trade ;  passing 
by  way  of  Beauvais  College  to  the  Sorbonne.  He  is 
known  to  have  pleaded  in  but  one  case,  and  then  with 
credit  to  himself.  Still  the  law  did  not  please  him, 
any  more  than  did  the  dry  theology  and  the  pedantic 
philosophy  that  he  listened  to  on  the  benches  of  the 
Sorbonne.  He  was  enamoured  early  of  poetry  and 
romance,  and  soon  affianced  himself  to  the  Muse.  This 
was  his  only  betrothal,  and  he  made  no  other  mar- 
riage. He  was  born  an  old  bachelor,  and  he  soon 
sought  bachelor  quarters,  driven  by  the  children's 
racket  from  his  nephew's  house — also  in  the  Cour  du 
Palais — where  he  had  found  a  home.  This  nephew 
and  this  house  were  well  known  to  Voltaire  when  a 
boy,  as  he  tells  us  in  his  "  Epitre  a  Boileau  " : 

"  Chez  ton  neveu  Dongois  je  fiassai  mon  en/ance, 
Bon  bourgeois^  qui  se  crut  un  hotnme  cT importance!' 

It  is  first  in  the  year  1664  that  we  can  place  with 
certainty  Boileau's  residence  in  Rue  du  Vieux-Co- 
lombier,  in  that  small  apartment  which  fills  a  larger 
place  in  the  annals  of  literary  life  than  any  domicile 
of  that  day,  perhaps  of  any  day.  It  was  the  gathering- 
place  of  that  illustrious  quartette — 

"  The  goodliest  fellowship  of  famous  knights 
Whereof  this  world  holds  record." 

Moliere  comes  from  his  rooms  in  Rue  Saint-Honore, 
or  from  his  theatre ;  crossing  the  Seine  by  the  Pont- 


1 84  THE   STONES   OF  PARIS 

Neuf,  and  passing  along  Rues  Dauphine  and  de  Bucy, 
and  through  the  Marche  Saint-Germain ;  moody  from 
domestic  dissensions,  heavy-hearted  with  the  recent 
loss  of  his  first-born.  Once  among  his  friends,  he  lis- 
tens, as  he  always  listened,  talking  but  little.  La  Fon- 
taine saunters  from  the  Hotel  de  Bouillon,  by  way  of 
Rue  des  Petits-Augustins — now  Rue  Bonaparte — and 
of  tortuous  courts  now  straightened  into  streets.  Sit- 
ting at  table,  he  is  yet  in  his  own  land  of  dreams,  until, 
stirred  from  his  musing,  his  fine  eyes  brighten,  and 
he  chatters  with  a  curious  blending  of  simplicity  and 
-finesse.  Racine  steps  in  from  his  lodging  in  Rue  de 
Grenelle,  hard  by;  the  youngest  of  the  four,  he,  un- 
like those  other  two,  is  seldom  silent,  and  gives  full 
play  to  his  ironical  raillery.  Next  above  him  in  age 
is  the  host;  shrewd,  brusque,  incisive  of  speech  and 
manner.  So  he  shows  in  Girardon's  admirable  bust 
in  the  Louvre.  The  enormous  wig  then  worn  cannot 
becloud  the  bright  alertness  of  his  expression,  or  over- 
weigh  the  full  lips  that  could  sneer  and  the  square 
chin,  so  resolute.  These  comrades  talked  of  all  sorts 
of  things,  and  read  to  one  another  what  each  had 
written  since  they  last  met ;  read  it  for  the  sake  of 
honest  criticism  from  the  rest,  and  with  no  other 
thought.  For  never  were  four  men  so  absolutely  with- 
out pose,  without  any  pretence  of  earnestness,  while 
immensely  in  earnest  all  the  time.  In  "  Les  Amours 
de  Psyche,"  La  Fontaine  assures  us  that  they  did  not 
absolutely  banish  all  serious  discourse,  but  that  they 
took  care  not  to  have  too  much  of  it,  and  preferred  the 


Boileau-Despreaux. 

(From  the  portrait  by  Largilliere.) 


MOLIERE  AND  MS  FRIENDS  185 

darts  of  fun  and  nonsense  that  were  feathered  with 
friendly  counsel.  Best  of  all,  his  fable  makes  plain 
that  there  were  no  cliques  nor  cabals,  no  envy  nor 
malice,  among  the  men  that  made  this  worshipful  band. 

Their  table  served  rather  to  sit  around  than  to  eat 
from,  for  their  suppers  were  simple,  and  the  flowing 
bowl  was  passed  only  when  boisterous  Chapelle  or 
other  bon-vivant  dropped  in.  For  others  were  invited 
at  times,  men  of  the  world,  the  court,  and  the  camp. 
And  Boileau  was  the  common  centre  of  these  excentric 
stars,  and  when  each,  in  his  own  special  atmosphere.of 
coolness,  swayed  from  the  others'  vicinage,  Boileau 
alone  let  no  alienation  come  between  him  and  any  one 
of  them.  For  each,  he  was  what  Racine  had  found 
him,  "  the  best  friend  and  the  best  man  in  the  world." 

The  house  was  near  a  noted  cabaret,  to  which  they 
sometimes  resorted,  at  the  Saint-Sulpice  end  of  the 
street.  The  cabarctier  was  the  illustrious  Cresnet, 
made  immortal  in  Boileau's  verse.  For  the  poet  was 
no  prude,  and  enjoyed  the  pleasures  of  the  table  so 
far  as  his  health  permitted;  and,  a  trained  gastro- 
nomic artist,  he  knew  how  to  order  a  choicely  har- 
monized repast.  His  street  is  widened,  his  house  is 
gone,  and  no  one  can  fix  the  spot.  Yet  the  turmoil 
of  that  crowded  thoroughfare  of  to-day  is  deadened 
for  us  by  the  mute  voices  of  these  men. 

We  have  noted  Boileau's  camp-following  with  Ra- 
cine, in  their  roles  of  royal  historiographers — in  1678 
and  later — but  he  was  not  strong  enough  for  these 
excursions,  even  though  they  were  made  a  picnic  for 


1 86  THE  STONES   OF  PARIS 

the  court.  He  was  never  at  home  on  a  horse,  and  yet 
out  of  place  in  the  mud,  and  he  could  not  enjoy  the 
laughter  he  caused  in  either  attitude,  before  or  after 
he  was  thrown ;  laughter  that  is  recorded  in  the  letters 
of  Madame  de  Sevigne. 

It  was  probably  because  of  Moliere's  taking  a  coun- 
try place  at  Auteuil  that  Boileau  began  to  make  fre- 
quent excursions  to  that  quiet  suburb  about  1667,  and 
went  to  live  in  his  tiny  cottage  there  in  1685.  "  He 
h'ad  acquired  it,"  to  use  his  biographer's  words,  "  partly 
by  his  Majesty's  munificence,  and  partly  by  his  own 
careful  economy,"  so  that  he  was  opulent,  for  a  poet. 
His  purchase  papers  were  made  out  by  the  notary 
Arouet — Voltaire's  father — who  drew  up  Boileau's 
pension  papers  in  1692,  and  who  did  much  notarial" 
work  for  the  Boileau  family.  The  cottage  stood  ex- 
actly on  the  ground  now  covered  by  the  rear  wing  of 
the  Hydropathic  Establishment,  at  No.  12  Rue  Boileau, 
Auteuil.  Here  he  spent  the  spring  and  summer  months 
of  manya  year,  always  alone,  but  with  a  hand-shake 
and  a  smile  for  his  many  visitors,  men  of  birth  as  well 
as  men  of  brains.  Hither  Voltaire  certainly  came, 
when  a  lad  living  with  Dongois,  for  he  says,  in  his 
pleasant  rhymed  epistle  to  Boileau : 

"  Je  vis  le  jardinier  de  ta  maison  d' Auteuil." 

To  this  same  "  laboricax  valet,"  to  this  same 

"  Antoine,  gouverneur  de  nion  jardin  d' Auteuil," 

Boileau  wrote  his  letter  in  verse  in  1695.    The  widow 


MO  LI  ERE  AND  HIS  FRIENDS  187 

Racine  came,  too,  for  frequent  outings  with  her  chil- 
dren, who  loved  the  garden  and  adored  Boileau,  for 
the  peaches  he  picked  for  them  and  the  ninepins  he 
played  with  them.  Louis  Racine,  a  sort  of  pupil  of  his, 
says  that  the  old  poet  was  nearly  as  skilful  at  this  game 
as  in  versifying,  and  usually  knocked  over  the  entire 
nine  with  one  ball.  And  when  he  went  to  town,  no 
warmer  welcome  met  the  crusty  old  bachelor  than  in 
Rue  des  Marais-Saint-Germain,  still  the  dwelling- 
place  of  Racine's  family. 

In  great  mansions,  too,  he  had  long  been  cordially 
received.  He  was  a  visitor  at  that  of  Madame  de 
Guenegaud,  which  has  given  its  site  to  the  Hotel  de  la 
Monnaie,  and  its  name  to  the  street  alongside.  He  was 
fond  of  meeting  kindred  spirits  and  kindly  hosts  in  the 
hotel  of  the  great  Conde  and  his  younger  brother  Conti. 
He  was  one  of  the  select  set  that  sat  about  the  table 
of  Lamoignon,  every  Monday,  at  his  home  in  the  Ma- 
rais,  to  be  visited  by  us  later.  And  whenever  old 
Cardinal  Retz  came  to  town,  Boileau  hastened  to  the 
Hotel  de  Lesdiguieres,  of  which  no  stone  stands  in 
the  street  of  its  name.  Here  the  white-headed,  worn- 
out  old  fighter,  compelled  to  live  in  retirement,  after 
the  storms  and  scandals  of  his  active  life,  was  made 
at  home  by  his  admirable  niece,  Madame  de  Lesdi- 
guieres, and  here  he  was  encircled  by  admiring  men 
and  women.  Here,  writes  Madame  de  Sevigne,  his 
other  niece,  who  came  often  to  sit  with  him,  Boileau 
presented  to  Retz  early  copies  of  "  Le.Lutrin,"  and  of 
"  L'Ars  Poetique." 


1 88  THE   STONES   OF  PARIS 

Boileau  could  not  live  in  the  country  in  winter,  and 
even  in  summer  he  had  to  go  often  into  town  to  get  the 
care  of  his  trusted  physician.  For  he  was  an  invalid 
from  boyhood,  and  all  his  life  an  uncomplaining  suf- 
ferer. But  he  hurried  back,  whenever  permitted,  to  the 
pure  air  and  the  congenial  solitude  of  his  small  cottage, 
where  three  faithful  servants  cared  for  him ;  not  as 
would  have  cared  the  wife,  whom  he  ought  to  have  had, 
all  his  friends  said,  and  so,  too,  he  thought  sometimes. 
He  grew  lonely  as  life  lengthened,  and  as  he  saw  his 
cronies  passing  away,  fast  and  faster,  old  Corneille  be- 
ing the  last  of  them  to  go. 

His  winters  in  the  great  city  were  spent  in  lodgings 
on  the  island,  in  the  cloisters  of  Notre-Dame.  Their 
quiet  had  always  attracted  him,  as  he  avows  in  the  verse 
that  quivers  with  his  nervous  irritability,  caused  by  the 
noises  of  the  noisiest  of  towns.  He  cries,  "  Does  one  go 
to  bed  to  be  kept  awake  ?  "  Indeed,  he  had  rooms  in  the 
cloisters  as  early  as  1683,  keeping  them  for  town  quar- 
ters, in  the  official  residence  of  l'Abbe  de  Dreux,  his 
old  friend,  a  canon  of  Notre-Dame.  To  this  address 
Racine  sent  him  a  letter  as  late  as  1687.  The  ecclesias- 
tical settlement  within  the  cathedral  cloisters,  and  its 
only  remaining  cottage,  have  been  spoken  of  in  an 
earlier  chapter.  The  cloisters  themselves  survive  only 
in  the  name  of  the  street  that  has  been  cut  through 
their  former  site. 

In  1699  we  find  Boileau  living  with  his  confessor,  the 
Abbe  Lenoir,  also  a  canon  of  the  cathedral,  who  had  the 
privilege  of  residing  within  the  cloisters.     This  house 


MOLIERE  AND  HIS  FRIENDS 


stood  exactly  where  now  is  the  southern  edge  of  the 
fountain  behind  Notre-Dame,  above  Le  Terrain  and  the 
Seine.  His  rooms  were  on  the  first  floor,  his  bed  in  an 
alcove,  and  his  windows  looked  out  on  the  terrace  over 
the  river,  as  we  learn  by  the  amiable  accuracy  of  the  law- 
yer who  drew  up  his  will.  Here  Boileau  lived  through 
painful  years  of  breaking  bodily  health,  but  with  un- 
broken faculties.  He  yearned  for  his  old  home  at  Au- 
teuil,  and  yet  he  was  too  feeble  to  go  so  far.  He  had 
sold  his  cottage  to  a  friend,  under  the  condition  that  a 
room  should  be  reserved  always  for  his  use.  That  use 
never  came.  One  day  toward  the  end,  he  summoned  up 
strength  to  drive  to  the  beloved  place ;  but  all  was 
changed,  he  changed  most  of  all,  and  he  hurried  home 
to  his  lonely  quarters,  where  death  found  him  at  ten 
o'clock  in  the  morning  of  March  2,  171 1. 

His  devoted  servants  were  requited  for  years  of 
faithful  service  by  handsome  legacies,  then  the  rela- 
tives were  provided  for,  and  no  friend  was  forgotten. 
The  remainder  of  his  fortune  went  to  the  "  pauvrcs 
honteux "  of  six  small  parishes  in  the  City.  A  vast 
and  reverent  concourse  of  mourners  of  every  rank  fol- 
lowed his  coffin  to  its  first  resting-place.  This  was  in 
the  lower  chapel  of  the  Sainte-Chapelle,  as  he  had  or- 
dered ;  the  church  of  his  baptism,  and  of  the  burial  of 
his  mother  and  father.  By  a  strange  chance,  his  grave 
had  been  dug  under  that  very  reading-desk  which  had 
suggested  to  him  the  subject  of  his  most  striking  pro- 
duction, the  heroic-comic  poem  "  Le  Lutrin."  Early 
in  the  Revolution  his  remains  were  removed,  to  save 


igo  THE   STONES    OE  PARIS 

them  from  fortuitous  profanation  by  the  "  Patriots,"  to 
the  Museum  of  French  Monuments  established  in  the 
convent  of  the  Petits-Augustins,  in  the  street  of  that 
name,  now  Rue  Bonaparte.  In  1819  his  bones  were 
finally  placed  in  Saint-Germain-des-Pres,  where,  in  the 
chapel  of  Saint-Peter  and  Saint-Paul,  they  are  at  rest 
behind  a  black  marble  tablet  carved  with  a  ponderous 
Latin  inscription. 


FROM    VOLTAIRE   TO    BEAUMARCHAIS 


Voltaire 

From  the  statue  by  Houdon  in  the  foyer  of  the  Comedie   Franca.se  ) 


FROM    VOLTAIRE   TO    BEAUMARCHAIS 

"Dans  la  conr  du  Palais,  jc  naquis  ton  voisin," 
wrote  Voltaire  to  Boileau,  in  one  of  those  familiar 
rhymed  letters  that  soften  the  austere  rhetoric  of  the 
French  verse  of  that  clay.  The  place  of  Voltaire's 
birth,  nearly  sixty  years  after  that  of  Boileau,  was 
in  the  same  Street  of  Jerusalem,  at  its  corner  with  the 
Street  of  Nazareth,  and  it  was  only  thus  as  a  baby  that 
he  came  ever  in  touch  with  the  Holy  Land.  On  No- 
vember 22,  1694,  the  day  after  his  birth,  he  was  car- 
ried across  the  river  to  Saint-Andre-des-Arts — no  one 
knows  why  his  baptism  was  not  in  the  island  church 
of  the  parish — and  there  christened  Frangois-Marie 
Arouet.  His  earlier  years  were  passed  in  the  house 
of  Boileau 's  nephew  Dongois,  whose  airs  of  importance 
did  not  escape  the  keen  infant  eyes,  as  we  have  seen 
in  the  same  letter  in  verse  in  our  preceding  chapter. 
Then  he  was  sent  to  Lycee  Louis-le-Grand,  whither 
we  have  gone  with  young  Poquelin,  seventy  years 
earlier.  The  college  stands  in  its  new  stone  on  its  old 
site  in  widened  Rue  Saint-Jacques. 

We  hear  of  no  break  in  the  tranquil  course  of  young 

Arouet's  studies,  beyond  the  historic  scene  of  his  pres- 
Vol.  [. — 13.  193 


1 94  THE   STONES    OF  PARIS 

entation  to  Mile.  Ninon  de  Lenclos  at  her  home  in  the 
Marais,  to  which  we  shall  go  in  a  later  chapter.  This 
was  in  1706,  when  she  owned  to  ninety  years  of  age  at 
least,  and  she  was  flattered  by  the  visit  of  the  youth  of 
twelve,  and  by  the  verse  he  wrote  for  her  birthday. 
Dying  in  that  year,  she  left  a  handsome  sum  to  her 
juvenile  admirer,  to  be  spent  for  books.  So,  "  seconde 
de  Ninon,  dont  jc  fits  legataire"  the  lad  was  strength- 
ened in  his  inclination  for  the  career  of  literature  he  had 
already  planned  for  himself,  and  in  his  disinclination 
for  the  legal  career  planned  for  him  by  his  father.  The 
elder  Arouet  was  a  flourishing  notary — among  his  cli- 
ents was  the  Boileau  family — who  considered  his  own 
the  only  profession  really  respectable.  He  placed  his 
boy,  the  college  days  being  done,  with  one  Maitre  Alain, 
whose  office  was  near  Place  Maubert,  between  Rues  de 
la  Bucherie  and  Galande,  a  quarter  crowded  then  with 
notaries  and  advocates,  now  all  swept  into  limbo.  But 
young  Arouet  spent  too  many  of  his  days  and  nights 
with  the  congenial  comrades  that  met  in  the  Temple ; 
"  an  advanced  and  dangerous  "  troop  of  swells  and  wits 
and  pen-workers,  light-heartedly  bent  on  fun,  amid 
the  general  gloom  brought  by  Marlborough's  victories, 
and  by  Madame  de  Maintenon's  persistence  in  making 
I'aris  pious.  Father  Arouet  sent  his  son  away  to  The 
Hague ;  the  first  of  his  many  journeys,  enforced  and 
voluntary.  When  allowed  to  return  in  1 71 5,  he  lost  no 
time  in  hunting  up  his  old  associates  ;  and  soon,  stronger 
hands  than  those  of  his  father  settled  him  in  the  Bas- 
tille, in  punishment  for  verse,  not  written  by  him,  satir- 


FROM    VOLTAIRE    TO   BEAUMARCHAIS  igs 

izing  the  Regent  and  his  daughter,  Duchesse  de  Berri. 
There  he  spent  his  twenty-third  year,  utilizing  his 
leisure  to  plan  his  "  Henriade,"  and  to  finish  his 
"  CEdipe."  When  set  free,  he  came  out  as  Voltaire. 
Whether  he  took  this  new  name  from  a  small  estate  of 
his  mother,  or  whether  it  was  an  anagram  of  Arouct 
ills,  is  not  worth  the  search ;  enough  for  us  that  it  is 
the  name  of  him,  who  was  to  become,  as  John  Morley 
rightly  says,  "  the  yery  eye  of  eighteenth-century  il- 
lumination," and  to  whom  we  may  apply  his  own  words, 
used  magnanimously  of  his  famous  contemporary, 
Montesquieu ;  that  humanity  had  lost  its  title-deeds, 
and  he  had  recovered  them. 

Once  again  in  the  world,  he  produced  his  "  CEdipe  " 
in  1718,  with  an  immediate  and  resounding  success, 
which  was  not  won  by  his  succeeding  plays  between 
1720  and  1724.  It  was  during  this  period  that  he  spas- 
modically disappeared  from  Paris,  reappearing  at  Brus- 
sels, Utrecht,  The  Hague,;  "  jouant  a  I'envoye  secret," 
as  was  his  mania  then  and  in  later  years.  During  one 
of  these  flittings  as  an  ambassador's  ghost,  he  met  Rous- 
seau, and  they  were  close  friends  until  the  day  when 
Rousseau,  showing  to  Voltaire  his  "  Letter  to  Poster- 
ity," was  told  that  it  would  never  reach  its  address ! 
That  gibe  made  them  sworn  enemies.  In  Paris,  during 
these  years,  Voltaire  had  no  settled  home.  We  have 
seen  him  in  the  salon  of  Mile.  Lecouvreur,  in  Rue  Vis- 
conti,  and  we  have  seen  him  there,  a  sincere  mourner  at 
her  death-bed.  It  has  been  told  in  an  earlier  chapter, 
how  that  fine  creature  had  sat  by  Voltaire's  sick-bed, 


i96  THE   STONES    OF  PARIS 

careless  of  her  own  clanger  from  the  small-pox,  with 
which  he  was  stricken  in  November,  1723.  He  fre- 
quented many  haunts  of  the  witty  and  the  wicked  during 
these  years,  and  a  historic  scene  in  one  of  these  has  been 
put  on  canvas  by  Mr.  Orchardson.  One  evening  in  the 
year  1725,  Voltaire  was  a  saucy  guest  at  the  table  of  the 
Due  de  Sully,  descendant  of  Henri  IV.'s  great  minister, 
in  the  noble  mansion  in  Rue  Saint-Antoine,  to  be  vis- 
ited by  us  later.  On  going  out,  he  wras  waylaid  and 
beaten  by  the  lackeys  of  the  Chevalier  de  Rohan-Cha- 
bot,  who  desired  to  impress  by  cudgels  the  warning 
that,  while  princes  are  willing  to  be  amused  at  the  table 
where  sit  "  only  princes  and  poets,"  the  poets  must  not 
presume  on  the  privilege.  In  the  painting,  Voltaire  re- 
appears in  the  room  to  the  remaining  guests,  dishevelled 
and  outraged.  Later  he  challenged  Rohan,  whose 
reply  came  in  an  order  of  committal  to  the  Bastille. 
After  two  weeks  in  a  cell,  Voltaire's  request  to  go  to 
England  in  exile  was  gladly, accorded  by  the  govern- 
ment. 

We  all  know  well  the  Voltaire  of  an  older  clay,  in  his 
statues  beside  the  Institute  and  within  that  building, 
beside  the  Pantheon,  in  Square  Monge,  and  in  the 
foyer  of  the  Theatre  Franqais.  To  see  him  at  this 
younger  day,  we  must  turn  into  the  court-yard  of  the 
Alairie  of  the  Ninth  Arrondissement  at  No.  6  Rue 
Drouot — an  ancient  and  attractive  family  mansion.  In 
the  centre  of  the  court  is  a  modern  bronze,  showing 
"  the  ape  of  genius  "  at  the  age  of  twenty-five,  a  dapper 
creature  with  head  perked  up  and  that  complacent  smile 


FROM    VOLTAIRE    TO   BEAUMARCHAIS  197 

so  marked  in  all  his  portraits.  This  smirk  may  be  due 
less  to  self-satisfaction  than  to  that  physical  peculiarity, 
claimed  by  Dr.  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  in  his  own  case, 
which  is  caused  by  the  congenital  shortening  of  the 
levator  muscles  of  the  mouth.  The  statue's  right  hand 
rests  jauntily  on  the  hip,  in  the  left  hand  is  a  book,  and 
the  left  skirt  of  the  long  coat  is  blown  back,  showing 
the  sword  that  was  worn  by  young  philosophers  who 
would  be  young  bloods.  The  pedestal  holds  two  bas-re- 
liefs ;  the  youth  in  Ninon's  salon,  the  patriarch  at  Fer- 
ney,  and  cut  in  it  are  his  words :  "  If  God  did  not  exist, 
it  would  be  necessary  to  invent  him." 

During  his  years  in  England,  Voltaire  made  ac- 
quaintance with  all  the  notable  men  of  letters  then 
living,  and  with  William  Shakespeare  in  his  works.  In 
them  he  tolerantly  found  much  merit,  but  always  styled 
their  author  a  barbarian.  Those  barbarisms  and  savag- 
eries he  civilized  and  smoothed  to  his  pattern,  for  his 
"  Brutus  "  is  an  unconscious  echo  of  "  Julius  Csesar," 
his  "  Zaire  "  a  shadow  of  "  Othello."  He  refused  to  call 
on  Wycherly  "  the  gentleman,"  as  Wycherly  insisted, 
but  was  glad  to  meet  Wycherly  the  playwright.  Nor 
did  Voltaire  turn  his  back  on  men  and  women  of  fash- 
ion, but  used  them  so  cleverly  as  to  enable  him  to  carry 
home  to  France  a  small  fortune,  from  the  subscriptions 
to  his  English  edition  of  the  "  Henriade."  He  was 
shrewd  in  money  matters,  and  a  successful  speculator 
for  many  years.  We  first  hear  of  him  again  in  Paris 
in  1729,  getting  army  contracts  and  making  money  in 
queer  ways.     Yet  all  through  life  his  pen  was  always 


THE   STONES    OF  PARIS 


busy,  and  in  this  same  year  it  is  at  work  in  a  grand 


apartment  of  the  Motel  Lambert.    This  was  the  man- 
sion of  M.  du  Chatelet,  husband — officially  only — of 


FROM    VOLTAIRE    TO    BEAUMARCHAIS  igg 

"  la  sublime  Emilie,"  with  whom  Voltaire  had  taken  up 
his  abode.  The  Hotel  Lambert  remains  unchanged  at 
tbe  eastern  end  of  lie  Saint-Louis,  looking,  from  be- 
hind its  high  wall  and  its  well-shaded  garden,  at  its 
incomparable  prospect.  Its  entrance  at  No.  2  Rue 
Saint-Louis-en-1'Ile  opens  on  a  grand  court  and  an  im- 
posing facade.  "  This  is  a  house  made  for  a  king, 
who  would  be  a  philosopher,"  wrote  Voltaire  to  his 
august  correspondent  Frederick  the  Great.  He  him- 
self was  neither  king  of  this  realm  nor  proved  himself 
a  philosopher  in  its  grotesque  squabbles.  Madame  du 
Chatelet  was  as  frankly  unfaithful  to  him  as  to  her 
husband,  who  was  frequently  called  in  to  reconcile  the 
infuriated  lovers.  She  was  a  woman  of  unusual  abil- 
ities as  well  as  of  unusual  indelicacies,  with  an  itch 
for  reading,  research,  and  writing,  her  specialties  be- 
ing Newton  and  mathematics. 

In  1733  this  queer  couple  found  it  to  their  comfort 
to  quit  Paris,  where  Voltaire  was  ceaselessly  beset  by 
the  suspicions  of  the  powers  that  regulated  thought  in 
France.  They  moved  about  much,  to  Voltaire's  discom- 
fort, living  sometimes  at  Cirey,  on  the  borders  of  Cham- 
pagne and  Lorraine,  with  or  without  the  complaisant 
du  Chatelet ;  sometimes  in  a  mansion  taken  by  Vol- 
taire in  Paris.  This  stood  on  the  corner  of  two  streets 
no  longer  existing,  Rues  du  Clos-Georgeau  and  Tra- 
versiere-Saint-Honore,  at  No.  25  of  the  latter;  and  its 
site  now  lies  under  the  roadway  of  new  Avenue  de 
l'Opera.  The  cutting  of  this  avenue  has  left  unchanged 
only  the  northern  end  of  Rue  Traversiere,  and  this  has 


THE   STONES    OE   PARIS 


been  renamed  in  honor  of  Moliere.  To  place  Voltaire's 
residence  in  the  old  mansion  at  the  new  number  25  in 
this  street,  as  a  recent  topographer  has  done,  is  an  in- 
genuous flight  of  fancy. 

Here  Voltaire  went  back  to  live  after  death  had  taken 
"  la  sublime  Emilic  "  from  him,  from  her  other  lover, 
and  from  her  husband.  This  legal  husband  was  less  in- 
consolable than  Voltaire,  whose  almost  incredible  re- 
proach to  the  third  man  in  the  case  makes  Morality 
hold  her  hand  before  her  face — peeping  between  the 
fingers,  naturally — while  Immorality  shakes  with  frank 
laughter.  On  the  second  floor  of  this  house,  Voltaire 
remained,  "  de  moitie  avcc  Ic  Marquis  du  Chatclct;  " 
the  first  floor,  which  had  been  her  own,  being  thence- 
forward closed  to  them  both.  Here  he  tried  to  find  com- 
panionship with  his  selfish  and  stolid  niece,  Madame 
Denis,  and  with  his  protege  Lekain.  He  transformed 
the  garret  into  a  private  theatre,  for  the  production  of 
his  plays,  free  from  the  royal  or  the  popular  censor; 
and  for  the  training  of  Lekain  in  the  part  of  Titus,  in 
"  Brutus."  That  promising,  and  soon  accepted,  actor 
made  his  debut  at  the  Theatre  Franqais  in  September, 
1750,  and  his  patron  was  not  among  the  audience. 
From  this  house,  Voltaire  went  frequently  across  the 
river  to  visit  Mile.  Clairon  in  her  apartment  in  Rue  Vis- 
conti,  so  well  known  to  him  when  tenanted  by  Mile. 
Lecouvreur,  twenty  years  earlier.  And  from  this  house, 
wherein  he  came  to  be  too  desolate  and  lonely,  Voltaire 
went  forth  from  France  in  1 75 1 ,  to  find  a  still  more  un- 
congenial home  at  Potsdam.    With  his  queer  life  there, 


FROM    VOLTAIRE    TO   BEAUMARCHAIS  201 

and  his  absurd  quarrels  with  Frederick  the  Great,  this 
chronicle  cannot  concern  itself. 

"  Cafe  a  la  Voltaire  "  is  the  legend  you  may  read  to- 
day on  a  pillar  of  the  Cafe  Procope,  in  Rue  de  l'An- 
cienne-Comedie,  directly  opposite  the  old  Comedie 
Franchise.  We  have  seen  the  mixed  delight  and  doubt 
with  which  coffee  was  first  sipped  by  the  Parisians 
of  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century,  but  it  won 
its  way,  and  in  1720  the  Sicilian  Procope  opened  this 
second  Paris  cafe.  It  soon  became  the  favorite  re- 
sort by  night  of  the  playwrights  and  play-actors,  and 
the  swells  among  the  audience,  of  the  playhouse  across 
the  street.  Gradually  the  men  of  letters,  living  in  and 
visiting  the  capital,  made  this  cafe  their  gathering- 
place  of  an  afternoon ;  so  that,  on  any  day  in  the  mid- 
dle years  of  the  eighteenth  century,  all  the  men  best 
worth  knowing  might  be  found  here.  Their  names 
are  lettered  and  their  atrocious  portraits  painted  on 
its  inner  walls.  In  the  little  room  on  the  left,  as  you 
walk  in  on  the  ground  floor,  they  treasure  still,  while 
these  lines  are  written,  Voltaire's  table.  He  sat  here, 
near  the  stage  that  produced  his  plays,  sipping  his 
own  special  and  abominable  blend  of  coffee  and  choco- 
late. With  him  sat,  among  the  many  not  so  notable, 
Diderot,  d'Alembert,  Marmontel,  Rousseau,  with  his 
young  friend  Grimm — hardly  yet  at  home  in  Paris, 
not  at  all  at  home  with  its  language — and  Piron,  Vol- 
taire's pet  enemy,  who  wrote  his  own  epitaph : 

"  Ci-git  Piron, 
Que  fie  fut  rien, 
Pas  mime  Acadimicien" 


THE    STONES    OF   PARIS 


Here,  on  an  evening  in  1709,  sat  Alain-Rene  Le  Sage, 
awaiting  in  suspense  the  verdict  on  his  "  Turcaret," 
brought  out  in  the  theatre  opposite,  after  many  heart- 
breaking delays ;  for  the  misguided  author  had  con- 
vinced himself  that  his  title  to  fame  would  be  founded 
on  this  now-forgotten  play,  rather  than  on  his  never- 
to-be-neglected  "  Gil  Bias  "  ! 

During  the  Revolution,  while  the  Cafe  de  la  Re- 
gence,  which  faces  the  present  Comedie  Franchise,  was 
the  pet  resort  of  the  royalist  writers,  this  Cafe  Pro- 
cope  was  the  gathering-place  of  the  Republican  pen- 
men ;  and  they  draped  its  walls  in  black,  and  wore 
mourning  for  three  days,  when  word  came  across  the 
water  in  1790  of  the  death  of  Benjamin  Franklin,  the 
complete  incarnation  to  them  of  true  republicanism. 
Toward  the  unlamented  end  of  the  Second  Empire,  a 
small  group  of  young  American  students  was  to  be 
found,  of  an  evening,  in  the  Cafe  Procope,  harmlessly 
mirthful  over  their  beer.  After  a  while,  they  were 
content  to  sit  night  after  night  in  silence,  all  ears  for 
the  monologue  at  a  neighboring  table;  a  copious  and 
resistless  outburst  of  argument  and  invective,  sprin- 
kled with  Gallic  anecdote  and  with  gros  mots,  and 
broken  by  Rabelaisian  laughter,  from  a  magnificent 
voice  and  an  ample  virility.  They  were  told  that  the 
speaker  was  one  Leon  Gambetta,  an  obscure  barrister, 
already  under  the  suspicion  of  the  police  of  the  "  lurk- 
ing jail-bird,"  whom  he  helped  drive  from  France, 
within  a  few  years. 

The  old  house  is  to-day  only  a  pallid  spectre  of  its 


FROM    VOLTAIRE    TO    BEAUMARCITA1S  203 


aforetime  red-blooded  self,  and  is  nourished  by  nothing 
more  solid  than  these  uncompact  memories.  Loving 
them  and  all  his  Paris,  its  kindly  proprietor  tries  to 
revitalize  its  inanimate  atmosphere  by  his  "  Soirees  lit- 
ter aires  et  musicalcs."  In  a  room  upstairs  "ancient 
poems,  ancient  music,  old-time  song,"  are  listened  to 
by  unprinted  poets,  unplayed  dramatists,  unhung  paint- 
ers. Some  of  them  read  their  still  unpublished  works. 
The  patron  enjoys  it  all,  and  the  waiters  are  the  most 
depressed  in  all  Paris. 

Denis  Diderot  gives  the  effect  in  his  work,  as  Gam- 
betta  did  in  the  flesh,  of  a  living  force  of  nature.  When, 
at  that  same  table,  Diderot  opened  the  long-locked  gate, 
the  full  and  impetuous  outflow  swept  all  before  it,  sub- 
merged and  breathless.  In  his  personality,  as  vivid  as 
that  of  Mirabeau,  we  see  a  fiery  soul,  a  stormy  nature, 
a  daring  thinker,  a  prodigious  worker.  His  head 
seemed  encyclopaedic  to  Grimm,  his  life-long  friend ; 
and  Rousseau,  first  friend  and  later  enemy,  asserted  that 
in  centuries  to  come  that  head  would  be  regarded  with 
the  reverence  given  to  the  heads  of  Plato  and  of  Aris- 
totle. Voltaire  could  imagine  no  one  subject  beyond 
the  reach  of  Diderot's  activity.  Arsene  Houssaye 
names  him  "  the  last  man  of  the  day  of  dreaming  in  re- 
ligion and  royalty,  the  first  man  of  the  day  of  the  Revo- 
lution." And  John  Morley,  looking  at  him  from  a 
greater  distance  than  any  of  these,  and  with  keener 
eyes,  ranks  him  higher  as  a  thinker  than  either  Rous- 
seau or  Voltaire.  As  thinker,  essayist,  critic,  cyclopae- 
dist,  Diderot  is  indeed  the  most  striking  figure  of  the 


204  THE    STONES    OE  PARIS 

eighteenth  century.  Rugged,  uncouth,  headlong,  we 
see  him,  "  en  rcdingote  de  peluchc  grisc  ereintce,"  in  the 
philosophers'  alley  of  the  Luxembourg  garden,  strolling 
with  more  energy  than  others  give  to  striding.  Striking 
and  strong  he  is  in  the  exquisite  bust  by  Houdon  in  the 
Louvre,  yet  with  a  refinement  of  expression  and  a  deli- 
cacy of  poise  of  the  head  that  are  very  winning.  This 
effect  might  have  been  gained  by  a  Fragonard  working 
in  the  solid. 

Here,  under  the  trees  where  meet  Boulevard  Saint- 
Germain  and  Rues  de  Rennes  and  Bonaparte,  it  is  the 
student  whom  we  see  in  bronze,  leaning  forward  in  his 
chair,  a  quill  pen  in  hand,  his  worn  face  bent  and  intent. 
This  spot  was  selected  for  the  statue  because  just  there 
Diderot  resided  for  many  years.  His  house  was  at  No. 
12  Rue  Taranne,  on  the  corner  of  Rue  Saint-Benoit, 
and  it  was  torn  down  when  the  former  street  was  wid- 
ened into  the  new  boulevard.  Here,  young  Diderot,  re- 
fusing to  return  to  the  paternal  home  at  Lancres,  when 
he  left  the  College  d'Harcourt — the  school  of  Boileau 
and  Racine — lived  in  a  squalid  room,  during  his  early 
days  of  uncongenial  toil  in  a  lawyer's  office  and  of  all 
sorts  of  penwork  that  paid  poorly — translations,  ser- 
mons, catalogues,  advertisements.  Here  he  was  hun- 
gry and  cold  and  unhappy;  here,  in  1743,  he  married 
the  pretty  sewing-girl  who  lived  in  this  same  house 
with  her  mother,  and  who  became  a  devoted  and  faith- 
ful wife  to  a  trying  husband.  For  her  he  had  the  only 
clean  love  of  his  not-too-clean  life.  From  this  garret 
he  poured  forth  prose,  his  chosen  form  of  expression, 


FROM    VOLTAIRE    TO  BEAUMARCHA IS         205 

when  poetry  was  the  only  vogue,  and  it  is  by  his  per 
sistence,  perhaps,  that  prose  has  come  to  the  throne 
in  France.  And  it  was  while  living  here  that  he 
originated  the  art-criticism  of  his  country ;  clear  and 
thorough,  discriminating  and  enthusiastic.  Earlier 
notices  of  pictures  had  been  as  casual  as  the  shows 
themselves ;  begun  in  1673,  under  Colbert's  protection 
and  the  younger  Mansart's  direction,  in  a  small  pavil- 
ion on  the  site  of  the  present  Theatre  Francais,  hav- 
ing one  entrance  in  Rue  de  Richelieu,  another  in  the 
garden,  into  which  the  pictures  often  overflowed. 
When  Diderot  wrote  his  notices  for  Grimm,  the  ex- 
hibitions had  permanent  shelter  in  the  halls  of  the 
Louvre.  In  1746,  still  in  this  house,  he  published  his 
"  Philosophic  Thoughts  "  and  other  essays  that  were 
at  first  attributed  to  Voltaire,  and  that  at  last  sent  the 
real  author  to  Vincennes.  There  he  was  kept  for  three 
maddening  months  by  an  outraged  "  Strumpetocracy  " 
and  a  spiteful  Sorbonne,  on  its  last  legs  of  persecution 
for  opinion.  You  may  go  to  this  prison  by  the  same 
road  his  escort  took,  now  named  Boulevard  Diderot, 
with  unconscious  topographic  humor. 

To  visit  "  great  Diderot  in  durance,"  Grimm  and 
Rousseau  came  by  this  road  ;  stopping,  before  taking 
the  Avenue  de  Vincennes,  at  a  farm-house  on  the  edge 
of  Place  du  Trone — now,  Place  de  la  Nation — where 
the  sentimentalist  quenched  his  thirst  with  milk.  That 
was  the  day  when  Rousseau  picked  up  the  paradox, 
from  Diderot,  which  he  elaborated  into  his  famous  es- 
say, showing  the  superiority  of  the  savage  man  over 


206  THE   STONES    OF  PARIS 

the  civilized  man.  There  is  as  slight  trace  to  be  found 
of  Jean-Jacques  Rousseau  in  the  Paris  of  to-day  as  in 
the  minds  of  the  men  of  to-day.  We  see  him  first,  in 
1745,  at  the  Hotel  Saint-Quentin  of  our  Balzac  chap- 
ter, carrying  from  there  the  uncomely  servant,  Therese 
le  Vasseur.  After  this  he  appears  fitfully  in  Paris 
through  many  years.  In  1772  he  is  in  Rue  Platriere — 
a  street  now  widened  and  named  for  him — on  the  fourth 
floor  of  a  wretched  house  opposite  the  present  Post- 
office.  There  he  was  found  by  Bernardin  de  Saint- 
Pierre — as  thin-skinned  and  touchy  as  Rousseau,  yet 
somehow  the  two  kept  friendly — with  his  repulsive 
Therese,  whom  he  had  made  his  wife  in  1768.  This 
preacher  of  the  holiness  of  the  domestic  affections  had, 
sent  their  five  children  to  the  foundling  hospital,  accord- 
ing to  his  own  statement,  which  is  our  only  reason  for 
doubting  that  he  did  it.  Bernardin  found  him,  clad  in 
an  overcoat  and  a  white  bonnet,  copying  music;  of 
which  Rousseau  knew  nothing,  except  by  the  intuition 
of  genius.  For  those  who  wish,  there  are  the  pilgrim- 
ages to  the  Hermitage  at  Montmorenci,  occupied  by 
him  in  1756,  and  nearly  forty  years  later  by  a  man 
equally  attractive,  Maximilien  Robespierre  ;  and  to  Er- 
menonville,  the  spot  of  Rousseau's  death  in  1778.  It 
is  easier  to  stroll  to  the  Pantheon,  where,  on  one  side, 
is  a  statue  of  the  author  of  "  Le  Contrat  Social  "  and 
"  Emile,"  which  gives  him  a  dignity  that  was  not  his 
in  life.  This  tribute  from  the  French  nation  was  de- 
creed by  the  National  Convention  of  75  Brumaire,  An 
II ,  and  erected  by  the  National  Assembly  in  1791.    Dur- 


FROM    VOLTAIRE    TO   BEAUMARCHAIS         207 

able  as  its  bronze  this  tribute  was  meant  to  be,  at  the 
time  when  he  was  deified  by  the  nation ;  since  then,  his 
body  and  his  memory  have  been  "  cast  to  the  dogs ;  a 
deep-minded,  even  noble,  yet  wofully  misarranged 
mortal."  While  acknowledging  his  impress  on  his  gen- 
eration as  an  interpreter  of  moral  and  religious  senti- 
ment, and  without  denying  the  claim  of  his  admirers, 
that  lie  is  the  father  of  modern  democracy,  we  may 
own,  too,  to  a  plentiful  lack  of  liking  for  the  man. 

Released  and  returned  to  his  wife  in  Rue  Taranne, 
Diderot  lost  no  time  in  beginning  again  that  toil  which 
was  his  life.  With  all  his  other  work — "  Letters  on  the 
Blind,  for  the  use  of  those  who  can  see,"  dramas  now 
forgotten,  an  obscene  novel  that  paid  the  debts  of  his 
mistress — he  began  and  carried  out  his  Encyclopaedia. 
"  No  sinecure  is  it !  "  says  Carlyle :  "  penetrating  into 
all  subjects  and  sciences,  waiting  and  rummaging  in 
all  libraries,  laboratories ;  nay,  for  many  years  fear- 
lessly diving  into  all  manner  of  workshops,  unscrew- 
ing stocking-looms,  and  even  working  thereon  (that 
the  department  of  '  Arts  and  Trades  '  might  be  per- 
fect) ;  then  seeking  out  contributors,  and  flattering 
them,  quickening  their  laziness,  getting  payment  for 
them,  quarrelling  with  bookseller  and  printer,  bearing 
all  miscalculations,  misfortunes,  misdoings  of  so  many 
fallible  men  on  his  single  back."  On  top  of  all,  he 
had  to  bear  the  spasmodic  persecution  of  the  Govern- 
ment instigated  by  the  Church.  The  patient,  gentle 
d'Alembert,  with  his  serenity,  his  clearness,  and  his 
method,  helped  Diderot  more  than  all  the  others.    And 


208  THE   STONES    OF  PARIS 

so  grew,  in  John  Morley's  words,  "  that  mountain  of 
volumes,  reared  by  the  endeavor  of  stout  hands  and 
faithful,"  which,  having  done  its  work  for  truth  and 
humanity,  is  now  a  deserted  ruin. 

As  he  brought  it  to  an  end  after  thirty  years  of  labor, 
Diderot  found  himself  grown  old  and  worn,  and  the 
busiest  brain  and  hand  in  France  began  to  flag.  By 
now,  he  stood  next  in  succession  to  the  King,  Voltaire. 
Yet,  for  all  the  countless  good  pages  he  has  written, 
it  has  been  truly  said  that  he  did  not  write  one  great 
book.  Other  urgent  creditors,  besides  old  age,  harassed 
him,  and  he  had  to  sell  his  collection  of  books.  They 
were  bought  by  the  Empress  Catharine  of  Russia,  at  a 
handsome  value,  and  she  handsomely  allowed  him  to 
retain  them  for  her,  and  furthermore  paid  him  a  salary 
for  their  care.  Grimm  urged  on  her,  in  one  of  his  gos- 
siping fcuillcs,  that  have  given  material  for  so  much 
personal  history,  the  propriety  of  housing  her  library 
and  its  librarian  properly,  and  this  was  done  in  the 
grand  mansion  now  No.  39  Rue  de  Richelieu.  We  have 
come  to  this  street  with  Moliere  and  with  Mignard,  and 
there  are  other  memories  along  this  lower  length,  to 
which  a  chapter  could  be  given.  We  can  awaken  only 
those  that  now  belong  to  No.  50.  Here  lived  a  couple 
named  Poisson,  and  on  March  19,  1741,  they  gave  in 
marriage  to  Charles  Guillaume  le  Normand  their 
daughter  Jeanne-Antoinette,  a  girl  of  fifteen.  That 
blossom  ripened  and  rottened  into  La  Pompadour. 
The  house  is  quite  unchanged  since  that  day.  In  a  large 
rear  room  on  its  first  floor,  in  the  year  1899,  future 


FROM    VOLTAIRE    TO   BEAUMARCHAIS  2oq 


chroniclers  will  be  glad  to  note  that  Moncure  D.  Con- 
way made  an  abbreviation  of  his  noble  life  of  Thomas 
Paine  for  its  French  translation.  His  working-room 
was  in  the  midst  of  the  scenes  of  Paine's  Paris  stay,  but 
not  one  of  them  can  be  fixed  with  certainty. 

The  house  numbered  39  of  this  street  is  occupied  by 
the  "  Maison  Stcrlin,"  a  factory  of  artistic  metal-work 
in  locks  and  bolts  and  fastenings  for  doors  and  win- 
dows. It  is  an  attractive  museum  of  fine  iron  and  steel 
workmanship,  ancient  and  modern.  There,  in  a  case, 
is  preserved  the  superbly  elaborate  key  of  Corneille's 
birth-house  in  Rouen.  The  brothers  Bricard  have  had 
the  reverent  good  taste  to  retain  the  late  seventeenth- 
century  interior  of  their  establishment,  and  you  may 
mount  by  the  easy  stairs,  with  their  fine  wrought-iron 
rail,  to  Diderot's  dining-room  on  the  first  floor,  its  pan- 
elling unaltered  since  his  death  there,  on  July  31,  1784. 
He  had  enjoyed,  for  only  twelve  days,  the  grandest  resi- 
dence and  the  greatest  ease  his  life  had  known.  They 
had  been  made  busy  days,  of  course,  spent  in  arranging 
his  books  and  pictures.  Sitting  here,  eating  hastily,  he 
died  suddenly  and  quietly,  his  elbows  on  the  table.  On 
August  1st  his  body  was  buried  in  the  parish  church  of 
Saint-Roch,  and  the  tablet  marking  the  spot  is  near 
that  commemorating  Corneille,  who  had  been  brought 
there  exactly  one  hundred  years  before. 

This  church  is  eloquent  with  the  presence  of  these 
two,  with  the  voice  of  Bossuet — "  the  Bible  trans- 
fused into  a  man,"  in  Lamartine's  phrase — and  with 
the  ping  of  Bonaparte's  bullets  on  its  porch ;  yet  there 
Vol.  I.— 14. 


THE   STONES    OF  PARIS 


is  a  presence  within,  less  clamorous  but  not  less  im- 
pressive than  any  of  these.  In  the  fourth  chapel,  on 
your  left  as  you  enter,  is  a  bronze  bust  of  a  man,  up 
to  which  a  boy  and  a  girl  look  from  the  two  corners 
of  the  pedestal.  This  is  the  monument  of  Charles 
Michel,  Abbe  de  l'Kpee,  placed  above  his  grave  in  the 
chapel  where  he  held  services  at  times,  and  the  boy 
and  girl  stand  for  the  countless  deaf-and-dumb  chil- 
dren to  whom  he  gave  speech  and  hearing.  The  son 
of  a  royal  architect,  with  every  prospect  of  preferment 
in  the  Church,  with  some  success  as  a  winning  preacher, 
his  liberal  views  turned  him  from  this  career.  His 
interest  in  two  deaf-mute  sisters  led  him  to  his  life- 
work.  There  were  others  in  England,  and  there  was 
the  good  Pereira  in  Spain,  who  had  studied  and  in- 
vented before  him,  but  it  is  to  this  gentle-hearted 
Frenchman  that  the  world  of  the  deaf  and  dumb  owes 
most  for  its  rescue  from  its  inborn  bondage.  He  gave 
to  them  all  he  had,  and  all  he  was ;  for  their  sake  he 
went  ill-clad  always,  cold  in  winter,  hungry  often.  He 
had  but  little  private  aid,  and  no  official  aid  at  all.  He 
alone,  with  his  modest  income,  and  with  the  little  house 
left  him  by  his  father,  started  his  school  of  instruction 
for  deaf-mutes  in  1760. 

The  house  was  at  No.  14  Rue  des  Moulins,  a  re- 
tired street  leading  north  from  Rue  Saint-Honore,  and 
so  named  because  near  its  line  were  the  mills  of  the 
Butte  de  Saint-Roch — where  wo  arc  to  find  the  head- 
quarters of  Joan  the  Maid.  One  of  these  mills  may 
be  seen  to-day,  re-erected  and  in  perfect  preservation, 


FROM    VOLTAIRE    TO   BEAUMARCHAIS         211 

at  Crony-sur-Ourcq,  near  Meaux,  and  above  its  door- 
way is  the  image  of  the  patron-saint,  to  whom  the  mill 
was  dedicated  in  the  fifteenth  century.  This  quarter 
of  the  town  had  become,  during  the  reign  of  Louis 
XIV.,  the  centre  of  a  select  suburb  of  small,  elegant 
mansions,  tenanted  by  many  illustrious  men.  On  the 
rear  of  his  lot  the  good  abbe  built  a  small  chapel,  and 
in  it  and  in  the  house  he  passed  nearly  thirty  years 
of  self-sacrifice,  ended  only  by  his  death  on  December 
23>  J7&9-  When  the  Avenue  de  l'Opera  was  cut  in 
1877-8,  his  street  was  shortened  and  his  establishment 
was  razed.  At  the  nearest  available  spot,  on  the  wall 
of  No.  23  Rue  Therese,  two  tablets  have  been  placed, 
the  one  that  fixes  the  site,  the  other  recording  the  de- 
cree of  the  Constituent  Assembly  of  July,  1789,  by 
which  the  Abbe  de  l'Epee  was  placed  on  the  roll  of 
those  French  citizens  who  merit  well  the  recognition 
of  humanity  and  of  his  country.  And,  in  1791,  amid 
all  its  troubled  labors,  the  Assembly  founded  the  In- 
stitution National  des  Sourds-Muets  of  Paris,  on  the 
base  of  his  humble  school.  The  big  and  beneficent  in- 
stitution is  in  Rue  Saint-Jacques,  at  its  intersection 
with  the  street  named  in  his  honor.  And  it  is  an  honor 
to  the  Parisians  that  they  thus  keep  alive  the  memory 
of  their  great  men,  so  that,  in  a  walk  through  their 
streets,  we  run  down  a  catalogue  of  all  who  are  mem- 
orable in  French  history.  In  the  vast  court-yard,  at 
that  corner,  under  a  glorious  elm-tree,  is  a  colossal 
statue  of  the  abbe,  standing  with  a  youth  to  whom  he 
talks  with  his  fingers.     It  is  the  work  of  a  deaf-mute, 


THE   STONES    OF  PARIS 


Felix  Martin,  well  named,  for  he  is  most  happy  in 
this  work. 

Like  the  Abbe  de  l'Epee,  and  for  as  many  years — 
almost  thirty  of  his  half-voluntary,  half-enforced  ex- 
ile— Voltaire  had  devoted  himself  in  his  own  way  to 
the  bettering  of  humanity,  crippled  mentally  and  spir- 
itually. He  had  given  vision  to  the  blind,  hearing  to 
the  deaf,  voice  to  the  speechless.  He  took  in  the  out- 
cast, and  cherished  the  orphan.  With  his  inherent  pity 
for  the  oppressed,  and  his  deep-rooted  indignation  with 
all  cruelty,  he  had  made  himself  the  advocate  of  the  un- 
justly condemned ;  and  none  among  his  brilliant  pages 
will  live  longer  than  his  impassioned  pleadings  for 
the  rehabilitation  of  the  illegally  executed  Jean  Calas.- 
And  now  he  comes  back  from  Ferney,  through  all  the 
length  of  France,  in  a  triumphal  progress  without 
parallel,  welcomed  everywhere  by  exultant  worshippers. 
At  four  in  the  afternoon  of  February  10,  1778,  his 
coach  appears  just  where  his  statue  now  stands  at  the 
end  of  Quai  Malaquais,  then  Quai  des  Theatins.  He 
wears  a  large,  loose  cloak  of  crimson  velvet,  edged 
with  a  small  gold  cord,  and  a  cap  of  sable  and  velvet, 
and  he  is  "  smothered  in  roses."  His  driver  makes  his 
way  slowly  along  the  quay,  through  the  acclaiming 
crowd,  to  the  home  of  "  la  Bonne  ct  Belle,"  the  girl 
he  had  rescued  from  a  convent  and  adopted,  now  the 
happy  wife  of  the  Marquis  de  Villette.  Their  eigh- 
teenth-century mansion  stands  on  the  corner  of  Rue 
de  Beaune  and  present  Quai  Voltaire,  unaltered  in  its 
simple  statclincss.    Here  Voltaire  is  visited  by  all  Paris 


The  Seventeenth-century   Buildings  on  Quai   Malaquais,  with  the 

Institute  And  the  Statue  of  Voltaire. 


FROM    VOLTAIRE    TO  BEAUMARCHAIS  213 

that  was  allowed  to  get  to  him.  Mile.  Clairon  is  one 
of  the  first,  on  her  knees  at  the  bedside  of  her  old 
friend,  exhausted  by  his  triumph.  She  is  no  longer 
young,  and  shows  that  she  owns  to  fifty-five  years,  by 
her  retired  life  at  the  present  numbers  34  and  36  Rue 
du  Bac.  There  she  has  her  books  and  her  sewing  and 
her  spendthrift  Comte  Valbelle  d'Oraison,  who  lives 
on  her. 

D'Alembert  and  Benjamin  Franklin  are  among  his 
visitors,  and  the  dethroned  Du  Barry,  and  thirty  chefs, 
each  set  on  the  appointment  of  cook  for  the  master. 
He  goes  to  the  Academy,  then  installed  in  the  Louvre, 
and  to  the  Comedie  Franchise,  temporarily  housed  in 
the  Tuileries,  the  Odeon  not  being  ready.  There  his 
"  Irene,"  finished  just  before  leaving  Switzerland,  is 
produced,  and  at  the  performance  on  the  evening  of 
March  30th  he  is  crowned  in  his  box,  his  bust  is 
crowned  on  the  beflowered  stage,  and  the  palms  and 
laurels  and  plaudits  leave  him  breath  only  to  murmur: 
"  My  friends,  do  you  really  want  to  kill  me  with  joy?  " 
That  was  the  last  seen  of  him  by  the  public.  He  had 
come  to  Paris,  he  said,  "  to  drink  Seine  water  " ;  and 
either  that  beverage  poisoned  him,  or  the  cup  of  flat- 
tery he  emptied  so  often.  One  month  after  that  su- 
preme night,  on  May  30,  1778,  at  a  little  after  eleven 
at  night,  he  died  in  that  corner  apartment  on  the  first 
floor.  For  thirty  years  after  it  was  unoccupied  and 
its  windows  were  kept  closed. 

Almost  his  last  words,  as  he  remembered  what  the 
Church  had  meant  to  him,  and  what  it  might  mean 


214  THE   STONES   OF  PARIS 

for  him,  were :  "  I  don't  want  to  be  thrown  into  the 
roadway  like  that  poor  Lecouvreur."  That  fate  was 
spared  his  wasted  frame  by  the  quickness  of  his 
nephew,  the  Abbe  Mignot.  Here,  at  the  entrance-gate 
in  Rue  de  Beaune,  this  honest  man  placed  his  uncle's 
body,  hardly  cold,  in  his  travelling  carriage,  and  with 
it  drove  hastily,  and  with  no  needless  stops,  to  Scel- 
lieres  in  Champagne.  There  he  gave  out  the  laudable 
lie  of  a  death  on  the  journey,  and  procured  immediate 
interment  in  the  nave  of  his  church,  under  all  due 
rites.  The  grave  was  hardly  covered  before  orders 
from  the  Bishop  of  Troyes  arrived,  forbidding  the 
burial.  The  trick  would  have  tickled  the  adroit  old 
man.  His  body  was  allowed  to  rest  for  thirteen  years, 
and  then  it  was  brought  back  in  honor  to  Paris.  A 
great  concourse  had  assembled,  only  two  weeks  earlier, 
at  the  place  where  the  Bastille  had  been,  hoping  to  hoot 
at  the  royal  family  haled  back  from  Varennes.  Now, 
on  July  ii,  1 79 1,  a  greater  concourse  was  stationed 
here,  to  look  with  silent  reverence  on  this  cortege, 
headed  by  Beaumarchais,  all  the  famous  men  of  France 
carrying  the  pall  or  joining  in  the  procession.  They 
entered  by  the  Vincennes  road,  passed  along  the  boule- 
vards, crossed  Pont  Royal  to  stop  before  this  mansion, 
and  went  thence  to  the  Pantheon.  There  his  remains 
lay  once  more  in  peace,  until  the  Bourbons  "  de-Pan- 
theonized  "  both  Voltaire  and  Rousseau. 

Benjamin  Franklin  had  come  to  visit  Voltaire  here 
on  the  quay,  by  way  of  the  Seine  from  Passy,  in  which 
retired  suburb  he  was  then  living.    The  traces  he  has 


FROM    VOLTAIRE    TO   BEAUMARCHAIS  215 

left  in  the  capital  are  to  be  found  in  two  inscriptions 
and  a  tradition.  We  know  that  he  had  rooms,  during 
a  part  of  the  year  1776,  in  Rue  de  Penthievre,  and  his 
name,  carved  in  the  pediment  of  the  stately  facade  of 
the  house  numbered  26  in  that  street,  is  a  record  of  his 
residence  in  it  or  on  its  site.  There  is  another  claimant 
to  his  tenancy  for  a  portion  of  this  same  year.  The 
American  who  happens  to  go  to  or  through  Passy,  on 
a  Fourth  of  July,  will  have  opportune  greeting  from 
the  Stars  and  Stripes,  draped  over  the  doorway  of  the 
old-fashioned  building,  more  a  cottage  than  a  man- 
sion, now  numbered  21  Rue  Franklin.  Its  owners  do 
this  each  year,  they  tell  you,  in  honor  of  the  great 
American  who  occupied  the  cottage  in  1776.  Their 
claim  is  the  more  credible,  inasmuch  as  the  street  has 
been  given  his  name  since  his  day  there,  when  it  was 
Rue  Basse.  In  the  following  year  he  went  farther 
afield,  and  for  nine  years  he  remained  in  a  villa  in  the 
large  garden,  now  covered  by  the  ugly  Ecole  des 
Freres  de  la  Doctrine  Chretienne,  at  the  corner  of 
Rues  Raynouard  and  Singer.  The  Historical  Society 
of  Passy  and  Auteuil  has  placed  a  tablet  in  this  corner 
wall,  recording  Franklin's  residence  at  this  spot  from 
1777  to  1785.  His  friend,  M.  Ray  de  Chaumont,  oc- 
cupied only  a  portion  of  his  Hotel  de  Valentinois,  and 
gave  up  the  remaining  portion  to  Franklin  for  his 
residence  and  his  office,  eager  to  show  his  sympathy 
for  the  colonies  and  his  fondness  for  their  envoy. 
Only  John  Adams,  when  he  came,  was  shocked  in  all 
his  scrupulosity  to  find  an  American  agent  living  rent- 


216  THE   STONES    OF  PARIS 

free !  In  this  garden  he  put  up  the  first  lightning-con- 
ductor in  France,  and  in  this  house  he  negotiated  the 
treaty  that  gave  the  crown's  aid  to  the  colonies  and 
made  possible  their  independence.  To  this  spot  came 
the  crowd  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  homely-clad  fig- 
ure, and  men  of  science  and  letters  to  learn  from  him, 
and  ladies  from  the  court  to  caress  him.  And  it  may 
have  been  here  that  he  made  answer  to  the  enamoured 
marquise,  in  words  that  have  never  been  topped  for  the 
ready  wit  of  a  gallant  old  gentleman. 

The  cortege  that  accompanied  Voltaire's  remains  to 
the  Pantheon  was  headed,  it  has  been  said,  by  Beau- 
marchais ;  fittingly  so,  for  Beaumarchais  was  then 
heir-presumptive  to  the  dramatic  crown,  and  his. 
"  Figaro  "  had  already  begun  to  laugh  the  nobility 
from  out  of  France.  Louis  XVI.  saw  clearly,  for  once, 
when  he  said:  "  If  I  consent  to  the  production  of  the 
'  Marriage  of  Figaro,'  the  Bastille  will  go."  He  did 
consent,  and  it  was  played  to  an  immense  house  on 
April  27,  1784,  in  the  Comedie  Francaise,  now  the 
Odeon.  That  night  the  old  order  had  its  last  laugh, 
and  it  rang  strangely  and  sadly.  Yet  in  this  comedy, 
that  killed  by  ridicule — the  most  potent  weapon  in 
France — once  played  a  queen  that  was,  and  once  a 
queen  that  was  to  be.  On  August  19,  1785,  on  the 
stage  of  the  Little  Trianon  at  Versailles,  the  Comte 
d'Artois — brother  to  Louis  XIV.,  later  to  be  Charles 
X. — appeared  as  the  Barber,  to  the  Rosina  of  Marie 
Antoinette.  And,  in  the  summer  of  1803,  during  the 
Consulate,  when  Malmaison  was  the  scene  of  gayeties, 


FROM    VOLTAIRE    TO   BEAUMARCHAIS  217 

a  theatre  was  constructed  in  the  garden,  and  on  its 
boards,  Hortense  (soon  after  Queen  of  Holland)  made 
a  success  as  Rosina. 

Playwriting  was  merely  a  digression  in  the  diversi- 
fied career  of  this  man  of  various  aptitudes,  whose 
ups  and  downs  we  have  no  excuse  for  dwelling  on,  as 
we  trace  him  through  Paris  streets.  There  is  no  tablet 
to  mark  his  birth,  on  January  24,  1732,  in  the  house 
of  his  father,  Caron,  the  watchmaker  of  Rue  Saint- 
Denis,  opposite  the  old  Cemetery  of  the  Innocents, 
nearly  at  Rue  de  la  Ferronerie.  Pierre-Augustin 
Caron  he  was  christened,  and  it  was  in  his  soaring 
years  that  he  added  "  de  Beaumarchais."  This  quarter 
is  notable  in  that  it  was  the  scene  of  the  birth  and 
boyhood  of  four  famous  dramatists — of  Moliere,  as 
we  have  seen,  and  of  Regnard,  as  we  shall  see;  of 
Beaumarchais  and  of  Eugene  Scribe.  To  record  this 
latest  birth,  on  December  24,  1791,  a  tablet  is  set  in 
the  wall  of  No.  32  Rue  Saint-Denis,  at  the  corner  of 
Rue  de  la  Reynie,  only  a  few  steps  south  of  the  Caron 
house.  It  is  a  plain,  old-style  house  of  four  stories 
and  a  garret,  and  has  become  a  shop  for  chocolates 
and  sweets.  It  has  on  its  sign,  "An  Chat  Noir"; 
black  cats  are  carved  wherever  they  will  cling  on  its 
front  and  side,  and  a  huge,  wooden,  black  cat  rides  on 
the  cart  that  carries  the  chocolate. 

Beaumarchais  had  a  residence  at  No.  6  Rue  de 
Conde  in  1773,  and  at  the  Hotel  de  Hollande,  Rue 
Vielle-du-Temple  47,  in  1776.  We  shall  go  there  later. 
On  the  wall  of  the  house,  No.  2  Boulevard  Beaumar- 


THE   STONES    OF   PARIS 


chais,  a  tablet  marks  the  site  of  his  great  mansion  and 
its  spacious  gardens.  These  covered  the  entire  tri- 
angle enclosed  by  Rues  Amelot,  Daval,  and  Roquette. 
He  had  found  the  money  for  this  colossal  outlay,  not 
in  his  plays,  but  in  all  sorts  of  mercantile  transactions, 
some  of  them  seemingly  shabby.  It  is  claimed  that 
he  lost  large  sums  in  supplying,  as  the  unavowed  agent 
of  the  crown,  war  equipment  to  the  struggling  Ameri- 
can colonies.  His  palace  went  up  in  sight  of  the  Bas- 
tille, then  going  down.  The  Parisians  came  in  crowds 
to  see  his  grounds,  with  their  grottoes,  statues,  and 
lake ;  and  he  entertained  all  the  swelldom  of  France. 
There,  one  day  in  1792,  the  mob  from  the  too-near 
Faubourg  Saint- Antoine  came  uninvited,  and  raided 
house  and  grounds  for  hidden  arms  and  ammunition, 
not  to  be  found.  The  owner  went  to  the  Abbaye 
prison  and  thence  into  exile  and  poverty.  Returning 
in  1796,  he  spent  his  last  years  in  a  hopeless  attempt 
to  gather  up  remnants  of  his  broken  fortunes,  a  big 
remnant  being  the  debt  neglected  and  rejected  by  the 
American  Congress.  The  romance  of  this  "  Lost 
Million  "  cannot  be  told  here.  Beaumarchais  died  in 
this  house  in  1799,  and  was  buried  in  the  garden. 
When  the  ground  was  taken  for  the  Saint-Martin 
Canal  in  1818,  his  remains  were  removed  to  Pere-La- 
chaise.  The  grave  is  as  near  that  of  Scribe  as  were 
their  birthplaces.  His  name  was  given  to  the  old 
Boulevard  Saint-Antoinc  in  183 1,  and  in  1897  his 
statue  was  placed  in  that  wide  space  in  Rue  Saint- 
Antoinc  that  faces  Rue  des  Tournellcs.    The  pedestal 


FROM    VOLTAIRE    TO   BEAUMARCIIAIS         219 

is  good,  and  worthy  of  a  more  convincing  statue  of 
tins  man  of  strong  character  and  of  contrasting  quali- 
ties. And  at  the  Washington  Head-quarters  at  New- 
burgh-on-Hudson,  and  at  the  various  collections  of 
Revolutionary  relics  in  the  United  States,  you  will 
find  cannon  that  came  from  French  arsenals,  and  that, 
it  was  hinted,  left  commissions  in  the  hands  of  Caron 
de  Beaumarchais. 


THE   PARIS   OF   THE  REVOLUTION 


Charlotte  Corday. 

(From  the  copy  by  Baudry  of  the  only  authentic  portrait,  painted  in  her  prison) 


THE   PARIS   OF   THE   REVOLUTION 

It  is  no  part  of  the  province  of  this  book  to  re- 
construct the  Paris  of  the  Revolution,  nor  is  there 
room  for  such  reconstruction,  now  that  M.  G.  Lenotre 
has  given  us  his  exhaustive  and  admirable  "  Paris 
Revolutionnaire."  Despite  the  destruction  of  so  much 
that  was  worth  saving  of  that  period,  there  yet  remain 
many  spots  for  our  seeing.  The  cyclone  of  those  years 
had  two  centres,  and  one  of  them  is  fairly  well  pre- 
served. It  is  the  Cour  du  Commerce,  to  which  we 
have  already  come  in  search  of  the  tower  and  wall  of 
Philippe-Auguste.  Outside  that  wall,  close  to  the 
Porte  de  Buci,  there  had  been  a  tennis-court,  which 
was  extended,  in  1776,  into  a  narrow  passage,  with 
small  dwellings  on  each  side.  The  old  entrance  of  the 
tennis-court  was  kept  for  the  northern  entrance  of  the 
new  passage,  and  it  still  remains  under  the  large  house, 
No.  61  Rue  Saint-Andre-des-Arts.  The  southern  en- 
trance of  the  passage  was  in  the  western  end  of  Rue 
des  Cordeliers,  now  Rue  de  l'Ecole-de-Medecine.  In 
1876,  exactly  one  hundred  years  after  the  construction 
of  this  Cour  du  Commerce,  its  southern  half  and  its 
southern  entrance  were  cut  away  by  modern  Boule- 
vard Saint-Germain,  on  the  northern  side  of  which 

223 


224  THE  STONES   OF  PARIS 

a  new  entrance  to  the  court  was  made.  At  the  same 
time  the  houses  on  the  northern  side  of  Rue  de  l'Ecole- 
de-Medecine  were  demolished,  and  replaced  by  the 
triangular  space  that  holds  the  statues  of  Danton  and 
Paul  Broca  among  its  trees.  Those  houses  faced, 
across  the  street,  whose  narrowness  is  marked  by  the 
two  curbstones,  the  houses,  of  the  same  age  and  the 
same  style,  that  are  left  on  the  southern  side  of  this 
section  of  the  modern  boulevard.  One  of  the  houses 
then  destroyed  had  been  inhabited  by  Georges-Jacques 
Danton.  It  stood  over  the  entrance  of  the  court,  and 
his  statue — a  bronze  of  his  own  vigor  and  audacity — 
has  been  placed  exactly  on  the  spot  of  that  entrance,  ex- 
actly under  his  dwelling-place.  The  pediment  of  this 
entrance-door  is  now  in  the  grounds  of  M.  Victorien 
Sardou,  at  Marly-le-Roi.  Danton's  apartment,  on  the 
first  floor  above  the  entresol,  had  two  salons  and  a  bed- 
room looking  out  on  Rue  des  Cordeliers,  while  the 
dining-room  and  working-room  had  windows  on  the 
Cour  du  Commerce.  Here  in  1792  he  had  his  whole- 
some, peaceful  home,  with  his  wife  and  their  son ;  and 
to  them  there  sometimes  came  his  mother,  or  one  of  his 
sisters,  for  a  visit. 

In  the  entresol  below  lived  Camille  Desmoulins  and 
his  wife  in  1792.  The  two  young  women  were  close 
friends,  and  M.  Jules  Claretie  has  given  us  a  pretty 
picture  of  them  together,  in  terrified  suspense  on  that 
raging  August  10th.  Lucile  Desmoulins  knew,  on  the 
next  day,  that  the  mob  had  at  least  broken  the  windows 
of  the  Tnileries,   for  someone  had  brought  her  the 


THE   PARIS    OF   THE   REVOLUTION  225 

sponges  and  brushes  of  the  Queen!  And  on  the  12th, 
Danton  carried  his  wife  from  here  to  the  grand  hotel 
in  Place  Vendome,  the  official  residence  of  the  new 
Minister  of  Justice.  His  short  life  in  office  being  ended 
by  his  election  to  the  Convention  in  the  autumn  of 
that  year,  he  returned  to  this  apartment;  to  which, 
three  months  after  the  death  of  his  first  wife  in  that 
same  year,  he  brought  a  youthful  bride.  And  here, 
on  March  30,  1794,  he  was  arrested.  Before  his  own 
terrible  tribunal  his  reply,  to  the  customary  formal 
questions  as  to  his  abode,  was :  "  My  dwelling-place 
will  soon  be  in  annihilation,  and  my  name  will  live  in 
the  Pantheon  of  history."  He  spoke  prophetically. 
The  clouds  of  a  century  of  calumny  have  only  lately 
been  blown  away,  and  we  can,  at  last,  see  clearly  the 
heroic  figure  of  this  truest  son  of  France ;  a  "  Mira- 
beau  of  the  sans-cidottes,"  a  primitive  man,  unspoiled 
and  strong,  joyous  in  his  strength,  ardent  yet  stead- 
fast, keen-eyed  for  shams,  doing  when  others  were 
talking,  scornful  of  phrasemongers,  and  so  genuine 
beside  the  petty  schemers  about  him  that  they  could 
not  afford  to  let  him  live. 

Lucie-Simplice-Camille-Benoist  Desmoulins  had,  in 
his  queer  and  not  unlovable  composition,  a  craving  for 
a  hero  and  a  clinging  to  a  strong  nature.  His  first 
idol  was  Mirabeau.  That  colossus  had  died  on  April 
2,  1 791,  and  Desmoulins  had  been  one  of  the  leaders 
in  the  historic  funeral  procession  that  filled  the  street 
and  filed  out  from  it  four  miles  in  length.  Mont- 
Blanc  was  then  the  street's  name,  and  for  a  few  days 
Vol.  I.— 15. 


226  THE   STONES    OF   PARIS 


it  was  called  Rue  Mirabeau,  but  soon  took  its  present 
name,  Chaussee-d'Antin,  from  the  gardens  of  the 
Hotel  d'Antin,  through  which  it  was  cut.  The  present 
No.  42,  with  a  new  front,  but  otherwise  unchanged, 
is  the  house  of  Mirabeau's  death,  in  the  front  room  of 
its  second  floor.  Mirabeau's  worthy  successor  in  Ca- 
mille's  worship  was  Danton,  near  whom  he  lived,  as 
we  have  seen,  and  with  whom  he  went  as  secretary 
to  the  Ministry  of  Justice.  After  leaving  office,  Ca- 
mille  and  his  wife  are  found  in  his  former  bachelor 
home  in  Place  du  Theatre-Francais,  now  Place  de 
l'Odeon.  The  corner  house  there,  that  proclaims  itself 
by  a  tablet  to  have  been  his  residence,  is  in  the  wrong ; 
and  that  tablet  belongs  by  right  to  the  house  on  the 
opposite  corner,  No.  2  Place  de  l'Odeon  and  No.  7  Rue 
Crebillon.  From  his  end  windows  in  this  latter  street, 
when  he  had  lived  there  as  a  bachelor,  Camille  could 
look  slantwise  to  the  windows  of  an  apartment  at  No. 
22  Rue  de  Conde,  and  he  looked  often,  attracted  by  a 
young  girl  at  home  there  with  her  parents.  There  is 
still  the  balcony  on  the  front,  on  which  Lucile  Duplessis 
ventured  forth,  a  little  later,  to  blow  kisses  across  the 
street.  At  the  religious  portion  of  their  marriage,  in 
Saint-Sulpice  on  December  29,  1790,  the  temoins  of 
the  groom  were  Brisson,  Petion,  Robespierre.  The 
last-named  had  been  Camille's  schoolfellow  and  crony 
at  Lycee  Louis-le-Grand,  and  remained  his  friend  as 
long  as  it  seemed  worth  while.  The  wedding  party 
went  back  to  this  apartment — on  the  second  floor 
above  the  entresol — for  the  diner  de  noces.     Every- 


THE   PARIS    OF    THE   REVOLUTION  227 

thing  on  and  about  the  tabic — it  is  still  shown  at  Ver- 
vins,  a  village  just  beyond  Laon — was  in  good  taste, 
we  may  be  sure,  for  Desmoulins  was  a  dainty  person, 
for  all  his  tears  over  Marat ;  his  desk,  at  which  he 
wrote  the  fiery  denunciations  of  "  Le  Vieux  Cordelier," 
had  room  always  for  flowers.  It  was  here  that  he  was 
arrested,  to  go — not  so  bravely  as  he  might — to  prison, 
and  then  to  execution  with  Danton,  on  April  5,  1794. 
His  Lucile  went  to  the  scaffold  on  the  12th  of  the 
same  month,  convicted  of  having  conspired  against 
the  Republic  by  wandering  about  the  gardens  of  the 
Luxembourg,  trying  to  get  a  glimpse  of  her  husband's 
face  behind  his  prison  window.  To  us  he  is  not  more 
visible  in  this  garden  than  he  was  to  her,  but  in  the 
garden  of  the  Palais-Royal  he  leaps  up,  "  a  flame  of 
fire,"  on  July  12,  1789,  showing  the  Parisians  the  way 
they  went  to  the  Bastille  on  the  14th. 

In  the  same  section  with  Danton  and  Desmoulins, 
and  equally  vivid  with  them  in  his  individuality,  we 
find  Jean-Paul  Marat.  His  apartment,  where  lived 
with  him  and  his  mistress,  Simonne  Evrard,  his  two 
sisters,  Albertine  and  Catherine — all  three  at  one  in 
their  devotion  to  his  loathsome  body — was  in  a  house 
a  little  easterly  from  Danton's,  on  the  same  northern 
side  of  Rue  de  l'Ecole-de-Medecine.  It  was  at  this 
house  that  Marie-Anne-Charlotte  Corday  d'Armans, 
on  July  13,  1793,  presented  herself  as  "  Vange  de  ['as- 
sassination," in  Lamartine's  swelling  phrase.  She  had 
driven  across  the  river,  from  the  Hotel  de  la  Provi- 
dence.    In  our  Dumas  chapter  we  shall  try  to  find  her 


228  THE   STONES    OF  PARIS 

unpretending  inn,  and  shall  find  only  its  site.  In  the 
Musee  Grevin,  in  Paris,  you  may  see  the  baignoire  in 
which  Marat  sat  when  he  received  Charlotte  Corday 
and  her  knife — a  common  kitchen-knife,  bought  by 
her  on  the  day  before  at  a  shop  in  the  Palais-Royal. 
The  bath  is  shaped  like  a  great  copper  shoe,  and  on 
its  narrow  top,  through  which  his  head  came,  was  a 
shelf  for  his  papers. 

The  printing-office  of  Marat's  "  L'Ami  du  Peuple," 
succeeded  in  1792  by  his  "  Journal  de  la  Republique 
Franchise,"  was  in  that  noisiest  corner  of  Paris,  the 
Cour  du  Commerce.  It  was  in  that  end  of  the  long 
building  of  two  low  stories  and  attic,  numbered  6  and  8, 
now  occupied  by  a  lithographer.  After  Marat's  death, 
and  that  of  his  journal,  the  widow  Brissot  opened  a 
modest  stationer's  shop  and  reading-room  in  the  for- 
mer printing-office,  we  are  told  by  M.  Sardou.  It  is  an 
error  that  places  the  printing-office  at  the  present  No. 
1  of  the  court,  in  the  building  which  extended  then 
through  to  No.  7  Rue  de  l'Ancienne-Comedie.  These 
two  lots  do,  indeed,  join  in  their  rear,  but  Marat  has 
no  association  with  either.  In  Rue  de  l'Ancienne- 
Comedie,  certainly,  the  "  Friend  of  the  People  "  had 
storage  room  in  the  cellar  and  an  office  on  an  upper 
floor,  but  it  was  in  one  of  the  tall  houses  on  the  west- 
ern side  of  the  street,  just  north  of  the  old  theatre. 

The  only  claim  to  our  attention  of  No.  1  Cour  du 
Commerce — a  squalid  tavern  which  aspires  to  the  title 
of  "  La  Maison  Boilcau  " — comes  from  the  presence  of 
Sainte-Beuve.     The  great  critic  is  said  to  have  rented 


THE   PARIS    OF   THE   REVOLUTION  229 


a  room,  under  his  pen-name  of  "  Joseph  Delorme," 
for  a  long  time  in  this  then  cleanly  hdtcl-ganii,  for  the 
ostensible  purpose  of  working  in  quiet,  free  from  the 
importunate  solicitors  of  all  sorts  who  intruded  on 
his  home  in  Rue  du  Mont-Parnasse,  No.  11. 

Marat's  death  was  frantically  lamented  by  the  rabble, 
that  was  quite  unable  to  recognize  the  man's  unde- 
niable abilities  and  attainments,  and  that  had  made 
him  its  idolized  leader  because  of  his  atrocious  taste 
in  saying  in  print  exactly  what  he  meant.  They  car- 
ried his  body  to  the  nave  of  the  church,  and  later  to  its 
temporary  tomb  in  the  garden,  of  the  Cordeliers,  a 
step  from  his  house.  In  the  intervals  of  smiling  hours 
spent  in  watching  heads  fall  into  the  basket,  in  new 
Place  de  la  Revolution,  they  crowded  here  to  weep 
about  his  bedraped  and  beflowered  bier.  The  remains 
were  then  placed,  with  due  honors,  in  the  Pantheon. 
Then,  within  two  years,  the  same  voices  that  had  glori- 
fied him  shrieked  that  his  body  and  his  memory  should 
be  swept  into  the  sewer.  It  was  the  voice  of  the  peo- 
ple— the  voice  of  Deity,  in  all  ages  and  in  all  lands,  it 
is  noisily  asserted. 

When  the  Franciscan  monks,  who  were  called  Cor- 
deliers because  of  their  knotted  cord  about  the  waist, 
came  to  Paris  early  in  the  thirteenth  century,  they 
were  given  a  goodly  tract  of  ground  just  within  the 
Saint-Germain  gate,  stretching,  in  rough  outlines,  from 
Rues  Antoine-Dubois  and  Monsieur-le-Prince  nearly 
to  Boulevards  Saint-Germain  and  Saint-Michel.  The 
church  they  built  there  was  consecrated  by  the  sainted 


THE    STONES    OE  PARIS 


Louis  IX.  in  1262,  and  when  burned,  in  1580,  was  re- 
built mainly  by  the  accursed  Henri  III.  New  chapels 
and  cloisters  were  added  in  1672,  and  there  were  many 
other  structures  pertaining  to  the  order  within  these 
boundaries.  Of  all  these,  only  the  Refectory  remains 
to  our  day.  The  site  of  the  church,  once  the  largest 
in  Paris,  is  covered  by  Place  de  l'Ecole-de-Medecine 
and  by  a  portion  of  the  school ;  something  of  the 
shape  and  some  of  the  stones  of  the  old  cloisters  are 
preserved  in  the  arched  court  of  the  Clinique ;  bits  of 
the  old  walls  separate  the  new  laboratories,  and  an- 
other bit,  with  its  strong,  bull-nosed  moulding,  may 
be  seen  in  the  grounds  of  the  water-works  behind  No. 
11  Rue  Racine,  this  street  having  been  cut  through 
the  monks'  precincts,  so  separating  the  Infirmary,  to 
which  this  wall  belonged,  and  that  stretched  nearly  to 
the  rear  walls  of  Lycee  Saint-Louis,  from  the  greater 
portion  of  "  Lc  Grand  Convent  de  V Observance  de 
Saint  Francois." 

Turn  in  at  the  gateway  in  the  corner  of  Place  de 
l'Ecole-de-Medecine,  and  the  Refectory  stands  before 
you,  a  venerable  fabric  of  Anne  of  Brittany's  building, 
with  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  century  adornments,  all 
in  admirable  preservation.  The  great  hall,  filled  with 
the  valuable  collection  of  the  Musee  Dupuytren,  attracts 
us  as  a  relic  of  ancient  architecture,  and  as  the  last  ex- 
isting witness  of  the  Revolutionary  nights  of  the  Cor- 
deliers Club.  That  club  had  its  hall  just  across  the 
garden  alongside  the  Refectory,  in  one  of  the  buildings 
of  the  cloisters,  which,  with  the  church,  had  been  given 


JSSSf1, 

Ife] 


*— — sj««*  -; 


,,^•-".1;.-  • — _■_  ■■■ 


The  Refectory  of  the  Cordeliers. 


THE   PARIS    OF   THE   REVOLUTION  231 

over  to  various  uses  and  industries.  Hence  the  name 
of  the  club,  enrolled  under  the  leadership  of  Danton, 
on  whom  the  men  of  his  section  looked  as  the  incarna- 
tion of  the  Revolution.  To  him  Robespierre  and  his 
republic  were  shams,  and  to  his  club  the  club  of  the 
Jacobins  was  at  first  distinctly  reactionary.  It  took 
but  little  time,  in  those  fast-moving  days,  for  the 
Cordeliers,  in  their  turn,  to  be  suspected  for  their  un- 
patriotic moderation ! 

We  must  not  leave  our  Cour  du  Commerce,  without 
a  glance  at  the  small  building  on  the  northern  corner  of 
its  entrance  from  Rue  de  l'Ancienne-Comedie.  It  was 
here  that  the  first  guillotine  was  set  up  for  experiments 
on  sheep,  by  Dr.  Antoine  Louis,  Secretary  of  the  Acad- 
emy of  Surgeons,  and  the  head  of  a  committee  ap- 
pointed by  the  National  Assembly  on  October  6,  1791. 
On  that  day  a  clause  in  the  new  penal  code  made  death 
by  decapitation  the  only  method  of  execution,  and  the 
committee  had  powers  to  construct  the  apparatus, 
which  was  to  supersede  Sanson's  sword.  It  was  not 
a  new  invention,  for  the  mediaeval  executioners  of 
Germany  and  Scotland  had  toyed  with  "  the  Maiden," 
but  for  centuries  she  had  lost  her  vogue.  On  Decem- 
ber 1,  1789,  Dr.  Joseph-Ignace  Guillotin  had  tried  to 
impress  on  the  Assembly  the  need  of  humane  modes 
of  execution,  and  had  dwelt  on  the  comfort  of  decapi- 
tation by  his  apparatus  until  he  was  laughed  down. 
That  grim  body  could  find  mirth  only  in  a  really  funny 
subject  like  the  cutting  off  of  heads !  After  two  years 
and  more,  the  machine,  perfected  by  Dr.  Louis,  and 


232  THE   STONES   OF  PARIS 

popularly  known  as  "  La  Louisctte,"  was  tried  on  a 
malefactor  in  the  Place  de  Greve  on  April  25,  1792. 
Three  days  later  the  little  lady  received  her  official 
title,  "  La  Guillotine." 

Dr.  Guillotin  had  made  his  model  and  his  experi- 
ments at  his  residence,  still  standing,  with  no  external 
changes,  at  No.  21  Rue  Croix-des-Petits-Champs.  It 
was  already  a  most  ancient  mansion  when  he  came 
here  to  live,  and  perhaps  to  remain  until  his  death — 
in  bed — in  1814.  It  had  been  known  as  the  Hotel  de 
Bretagne,  and  it  is  rich  in  personal  history.  To  its 
shelter  came  Catherine  de  Lorraine,  the  young  widow 
of  the  Due  de  Montpensier,  the  "  lame  little  devil  " 
whom  Henri  III.  longed  to  burn  alive,  for  her  abuse 
of  him  after  the  murder  of  her  brother  Guise.  Within 
its  walls,  Anne  of  Austria's  treasurer,  the  rich  and 
vulgar  Bertrand  de  la  Baziniere — whom  we  have  met 
on  Quai  Malaquais — hoarded  the  plunder  which  he 
would  not,  or  dared  not,  spend.  Louis  XIV.  gave  him, 
later,  lodgings  in  the  Bastille,  in  that  tower  named 
Baziniere  always  after.  In  this  same  Hotel  de  Bre- 
tagne, Henrietta  of  France,  widowed  queen  of  Eng- 
land, made  her  temporary  home  in  the  winter  of  1661, 
near  her  daughter,  lately  installed  as  "  Madame,"  wife 
of  the  King's  brother,  in  the  Palais-Royal.  Return- 
ing from  England  in  1665,  this  unhappy  queen  went 
to  the  last  refuge  of  her  troubled  life  in  the  convent 
she  had  founded  on  the  heights  of  Chaillot.  From 
that  farther  window  of  the  first  story  on  the  right  of 
the  court,  the  Comte  de  Maulevrier,  Colbert's  nephew, 


THE   PARIS    OF   THE   REVOLUTION  233 

threw  himself  down  to  his  death  on  the  pavement  on 
Good  Friday,  1706.  In  time  the  stately  mansion  be- 
came a  hotcl-gami,  was  appropriated  as  National  Do- 
main in  the  Revolution,  and  sold  in  a  lottery. 

"  La  Guillotine,"  having  proved  the  sharpness  of  her 
tooth,  was  speedily  promoted  from  Place  de  Greve  to  a 
larger  stage  in  Place  de  la  Reunion,  now  Place  du  Car- 
rousel, and  thence  in  May,  1793 — that  she  might  not 
be  under  the  windows  of  the  Convention — to  Place  de 
la  Revolution,  formerly  Place  de  Louis  XV.,  at  pres- 
ent Place  de  la  Concorde.  This  wide  space,  just  be- 
yond the  moat  of  the  Tuileries  gardens,  had  in  its 
centre,  where  now  is  the  obelisk  of  Luxor,  a  statue  of 
the  late  "  well-beloved,"  then  altogether-detested,  King 
for  whom  the  place  had  been  named ;  and  a  little  to 
the  east  of  that  point  the  scaffold  was  set  up.  La- 
martine  puts  it  on  the  site  of  the  southern  fountain, 
for  the  effect  he  gets  of  the  flowing  of  water  and  of 
blood ;  this  is  one  of  his  magniloquent  phrases,  which 
scorn  exactness.  On  January  21,  1793,  for  the  execu- 
tion of  Louis  XVI.,  the  guillotine  was  removed  to  a 
spot  just  westward  of  the  centre,  that  it  might  be  well 
protected  by  the  troops  deploying  about  the  western 
side  of  the  place,  and  into  the  Champs  Elysees  and 
Cours  la  Reine.  For  a  while  in  1794,  the  guillotine 
was  transferred  to  the  present  Place  de  la  Nation — 
where  we  shall  find  it  in  a  later  chapter — to  come  back 
to  Place  de  la  Revolution  in  time  to  greet  Robespierre 
and  his  friends. 

Standing  here,  we  are  near  the  other  centre  of  Revo- 


234  THE   STONES   OE   PARIS 

lutionary  Paris,  made  so  by  the  Club  of  the  Jacobins, 
that  met  first  in  the  refectory,  later  in  the  church  of  the 
monastery  from  which  it  took  its  name.  The  site  of 
these  buildings  is  covered  by  the  little  Marche  Saint- 
Honore  and  by  the  space  about.  The  club  of  the  more 
moderate  men,  headed  by  Bailly  and  Lafayette,  had  its 
quarters  in  the  monastery  of  the  Feuillants,  which  gave 
its  name  to  the  club,  and  which  extended  along  the 
south  side  of  Rue  Saint-Honore,  eastwardly  from  Rue 
de  Castiglione ;  this  street  being  then  the  narrow  Pas- 
sage des  Feuillants,  leading  from  Rue  Saint-Honore  to 
the  royal  gardens,  and  to  the  much-trodden  Terrasse  on 
the  northern  side  of  those  gardens  facing  the  Manege. 
This  building  had  been  erected  for  the  equestrian  edur 
cation  of  the  youth  who  afterward  became  Louis  XV., 
and  was  converted  into  a  hall  for  the  sitting  of  the 
Assembly,  after  that  body  had  been  crowded  for  about 
three  weeks,  on  coming  to  Paris  from  Versailles,  into 
the  inadequate  hall  of  the  Archbishop's  palace,  on  the 
southern  shore  of  the  City  Island,  alongside  Notre- 
Dame.  The  Convention  took  over  the  Manege  from  the 
Assembly,  and  there  remained  until  May,  1793,  when 
it  removed  to  the  more  commodious  quarters,  and  more 
befitting  surroundings,  of  the  Tuileries.  The  old  rid- 
ing-school, whose  site  is  marked  by  a  tablet  on  the 
railing  of  the  garden  opposite  No.  230  Rue  de  Rivoli, 
was  swept  away  by  the  cutting  of  the  western  end  of 
that  street,  under  the  Consulate  in  1802. 

When  Maximilien  Robespierre  came  up  from  Arras 
— where  he  had  resigned  his  functions  in  the  Criminal 


THE   PARIS   OF   THE  REVOLUTION  235 


Court,  because  of  his  conscientious  objections  to  capital 
punishment — he  found  squalid  quarters,  suiting  his 
purse — which  remained  empty  all  through  life — in  Rue 
Saintonge.  That  street,  named  for  a  province  of  old 
France,  remains  almost  as  he  saw  it,  one  of  the  few 
Paris  streets  that  retain  their  original  buildings  and  an- 
cient atmosphere.  The  high  and  sombre  house,  where- 
in he  lodged  from  October,  1789,  to  July,  1791,  is  quite 
unaltered,  save  for  its  number,  which  was  then  8  and  is 
now  64.  From  here,  Robespierre  was  snatched  away, 
suddenly  and  without  premeditation  on  his  part,  and 
planted  in  the  bosom  of  the  Duplay  family.  They  had 
worshipped  him  from  afar,  and  when,  from  their  win- 
dows, they  saw  him  surrounded  by  the  acclaiming 
crowd,  on  the  day  after  the  so-called  massacres  of  the 
Champ-de-Mars  of  July  17,  1791,  the  peaceful  carpen- 
ter ran  out  and  dragged  the  shrinking  great  man  into 
his  court-yard  for  temporary  shelter.  The  house  was 
then  No.  366  Rue  Saint-Honore.  If  any  reader  wishes 
to  decide  for  himself  whether  the  modern  No.  398  is 
built  on  the  site  of  the  Duplay  house,  of  which  no  stone 
is  left,  as  M.  Ernest  Hamel  asserts ;  or  whether  the 
present  tall  structure  there  is  an  elevation  on  the  walls 
of  the  old  house,  every  stone  of  which  is  left,  as  M. 
Sardou  insists  ;  he  must  study  the  pamphlets  issued  by 
these  earnest  and  erudite  controversialists.  There  is 
nothing  more  delightful  in  topographical  sparring. 
The  authors  of  this  book  can  give  no  aid  to  the  solicitous 
student ;  for  they  have  read  all  that  has  been  written 
concerning  the  subject,  they  have  explored  the  house, 


236  THE   STONES    OF  PARIS 

and  they  have  settled  in  silence  in  the  opposing 
camps ! 

In  the  Duplay  household,  to  which  he  brought  misery 
then  and  afterward,  Robespierre  was  worshipped  dur- 
ing life  and  deified  after  death.  To  that  misguided 
family,  "  this  cat's  head,  with  the  prominent  cheek- 
bones, seamed  by  small-pox ;  his  bilious  complexion ; 
his  green  eyes  rimmed  with  red,  behind  blue  spectacles  ; 
his  harsh  voice ;  his  dry,  pedantic,  snappish,  imperious 
language ;  his  disdainful  carriage ;  his  convulsive  gest- 
ures— all  this  was  effaced,  recast,  and  transformed  into 
the  gentle  figure  of  an  apostle  and  a  martyr  to  his  faith 
for  the  salvation  of  men."  From  their  house,  it  was  but 
a  step  to  the  sittings  of  the  Assembly.  It  was  but  a  few 
steps  farther  to  the  garden  of  the  Tuileries  and  to  the 
"  fete  dc  I'Etre  Supreme,"  planned  by  him,  when  he 
had  induced  the  Convention  to  decree  the  existence  of 
God  and  of  an  immortal  soul  in  man.  He  cast  himself 
for  the  role  of  High  Priest  of  Heaven,  and  headed  the 
procession  on  June  8,  1794,  clad  in  a  blue  velvet  coat, 
a  white  waistcoat,  yellow  breeches  and  top-boots ;  car- 
rying in  his  hand  flowers  and  wheat-ears.  He  ad- 
dressed the  crowd,  in  "  the  scraggiest  prophetic  dis- 
course ever  uttered  by  man,"  and  they  had  games,  and 
burned  in  effigy  Atheism  and  Selfishness  and  Vice ! 
Such  of  the  stage-setting  of  this  farce  as  was  con- 
structed in  stone  remains  intact  to-day,  for  our  wonder 
at  such  childishness,  and  our  admiration  of  the  archi- 
tectural perfection  of  the  out-of-door  arena. 

From  this  Duplay  house,  Robespierre  used  to  go  on 


THE   FA  HIS    OF   THE   REVOLUTION 


237 


his  solitary  strolls,  accompanied  only  by  his  dogs,  in 
the  woods  of  Monceaux  and  Montmorenci,  where  he 
picked  wild-flowers.  From  this  house  he  went  to  his 
last  appearance  in  the  Convention  on  the  9  Thermidor, 
and  past  it  he  was  carted  to  the  scaffold,  on  the  follow- 
ing day,  July  28,  1794.  He  had  followed  Danton  with- 
in a  few  months,  as  Danton  had  predicted.    They  were 


t<,  ^^^  j«^  '■ 


,/ps?T 


\^}»Y*s 


The  Carre*  d'Atalante  in  the  Tuileries  Gardens. 

of  the  same  age  at  the  time  of  their  death,  each  having 
thirty-five  years ;  the  younger  Robespierre  was  thirty- 
two,  Saint-Just  was  twenty-six,  Desmoulins  thirty- 
four,  when  their  heads  fell.  Mirabeau  died  at  the  age 
of  forty-two,  Marat  was  forty-nine  when  stabbed. 
Not  one  of  the  conspicuous  leaders  of  the  Revolution 
and  of  the  Terror  had  come  to  fifty  years ! 

When  the  tumbrils  and  their  burdens  did  not  go  along 
the  quays  to  Place  de  la  Revolution,  they  went  through 
Rue  Saint-Honore,  that  being  the  only  thoroughfare  on 


238  TIfE   STONES    OF   PARIS 

that  side  of  the  river.  From  the  Conciergerie  they 
crossed  Pont  au  Change,  and  made  their  way  by  narrow 
and  devious  turnings  to  the  eastern  end  of  Rue  Saint- 
Honore,  and  through  its  length  to  Rue  du  Chemin- 
du-Rempart — now  Rue  Royale — and  so  to  the  scaffold. 
Short  Rue  Saint-Florentin  was  then  Rue  de  l'Oran- 
gerie,  and  was  crowded  by  sightseers  hurrying  to  the 
place.  Those  of  the  victims  not  already  confined  in  the 
Conciergerie  were  sent  to  the  condemned  cells  there,  for 
the  night  between  sentence  and  execution.  The  trust- 
worthy history  of  the  prisons  of  Paris  during  the  Revo- 
lution remains  to  be  written,  and  there  is  wealth  of 
material  for  it.  There  were  many  smaller  prisons  not 
commonly  known,  and  of  the  larger  ones  that  we  do 
know,  there  are  several,  quite  unchanged  to-day,  well 
worth  unofficial  inspection.  The  Salpetriere,  filling  a 
vast  space  south  of  the  Jardin  des  Plantes,  was  built 
for  the  manufacture  of  saltpetre,  by  Louis  XIII. ;  and, 
by  his  son,  was  converted  into  a  branch,  for  women, 
of  the  General  Hospital.  A  portion  of  its  buildings 
was  set  apart  for  young  women  of  bad  character,  and 
here  Manon  Lescaut  was  imprisoned.  The  great  es- 
tablishment is  now  known  as  the  Hopital  de  la  Sal- 
petriere, and  is  famous  for  its  treatment  of  women 
afflicted  with  nervous  maladies,  and  with  insanity. 
The  present  Hospice  de  la  Maternite  was  also  per- 
verted to  prison  usages  during  the  Revolution.  Its 
formal  cloisters  and  steep  tiled  roofs  cluster  about  its 
old-time  square,  but  its  ancient  gardens,  and  their 
great  trees,  are  almost  all  buried  beneath  new  ma- 


THE   PARIS    OF    THE   REVOLUTION  239 

sonry.  The  faqade  of  the  chapel,  the  work  of  Le- 
pautre,  is  no  longer  used  as  the  entrance,  and  may  be 
seen  over  the  wall  on  Boulevard  de  Port-Royal.  An- 
other prison  was  that  of  Saint-Lazare,  first  a  lazar- 
house  and  then  a  convent,  whose  weather-worn  roofs 
and  dormers  show  above  the  wall  on  Rue  du  Faubourg- 
Saint-Denis.  On  the  dingy  yellow  plaster  of  the  arched 
entrance-gate  one  may  read,  in  thick  black  letters : 
"  Maison  d' Arret  et  de  Correction."  Unaltered,  too, 
is  the  prison  in  the  grounds  of  the  Carmelites,  to  be 
visited  later  in  company  with  Dumas;  and  the  Lux- 
embourg, that  was  reserved  for  choice  captives.  The 
prison  of  the  Abbey  of  Saint-Germain  was  swept  away 
by  the  boulevard  of  that  name.  Its  main  entrance 
for  wheeled  vehicles  was  through  Rue  Sainte-Mar- 
guerite,  the  short  section  left  of  that  street  being  now 
named  Gozlin.  Of  the  other  buildings  of  the  abbey, 
there  remain  only  the  church  itself,  the  bishop's  pal- 
ace behind  in  Rue  de  l'Abbaye,  and  the  presbytery 
glued  to  the  southern  side  of  the  church-porch.  Its 
windows  saw  the  massacres  of  the  priests  and  the 
prisoners,  which  took  place  on  the  steps  of  the  church 
and  in  its  front  court.  When  you  walk  from  those 
steps  across  the  open  place,  to  take  the  tram  for  Fon- 
tenay-aux-Roses,  you  step  above  soil  that  was  soaked 
with  blood  in  the  early  days  of  September,  1792. 
Some  few  of  the  abbey  prisoners  were  slaughtered  in 
the  garden,  of  which  a  portion  remains  on  the  south 
side  of  the  church,  where  the  statue  of  Bernard  Palissy, 
by  Barrias,  stands  now.    In  other  chapters,  the  destruc- 


24o  THE   STONES   OF  PARIS 

tion  of  the  Grand-  and  the  Petit-Chatelet  has  been 
noted.  La  Force  has  gone,  and  Sainte-Pelagie  is  soon 
to  go.  And  the  Conciergerie  has  been  altered,  almost 
beyond  recognition,  as  to  its  entrances  and  its  courts 
and  its  cells.  Only  the  Cour  des  Femmes  remains  at 
all  as  it  was  in  those  days. 

There  are  three  victims  of  the  Terror  who  have  had 
the  unstinted  pity  of  later  generations,  and  who  have 
happily  left  traces  of  their  presence  on  Paris  brick  and 
mortar.  The  last  of  these  three  to  die  was  Andre- 
Marie  de  Chenier,  and  we  will  go  first  to  his  dwelling. 
It  is  an  oddly  shaped  house,  No.  97  Rue  de  Clery — 
Corneille's  street  for  many  years — at  its  junction  with 
Rue  Beauregard ;  and  a  tablet  in  its  wall  tells  of  de 
Chenier's  residence  there.  Born  in  Constantinople  "in 
1762,  of  a  French  father — a  man  of  genius  in  mercantile 
affairs — and  a  Greek  mother,  the  boy  was  brought  to 
Paris  with  his  younger  brother,  Joseph-Marie,  in  1767. 
They  lived  with  their  mother  in  various  streets  in 
the  Marais,  before  settling  in  this  final  home.  Here 
Madame  de  Chenier,  a  poet  and  artist  in  spirit,  filled  the 
rooms  with  the  poets  and  artists  and  savants  of  the 
time,  the  friends  of  her  gifted  sons.  Hither  came  Da- 
vid, gross  of  body,  his  active  mind  busied  with  schemes 
for  his  annual  exhibitions  of  paintings,  the  continuation 
of  those  begun  by  Colbert,  and  the  progenitor  of  the 
present  Salons;  Alfieri,  the  poet  and  splendid  advent- 
urer; Lavoisier,  absorbed  in  chemical  discovery. 
Here  in  his  earlier  years,  and  later,  when  he  hurried 
home  from  the  French  Embassy  in  London  on  the  out- 


THE  PARIS    OF   THE   REVOLUTION  241 

break  of  the  Revolution,  Andre  de  Chenier  produced 
the  verse  that  revived  the  love  of  nature,  dead  in  France 
since  Ronsard,  and  brought  a  lyric  freshness  to  poetry 
that  shamed  the  dry  artificialities  so  long  in  vogue. 
That  poetry  was  the  forerunner  of  the  Romantic  move- 
ment. In  his  tranquil  soul,  he  hoped  for  the  pacific 
triumph  of  liberty  and  equality,  and  his  delicate  spirit 
abhorred  the  excesses  of  the  party  with  whose  prin- 
ciples he  sympathized.  He  was  taken  into  custody  at 
Passy,  early  in  1794,  while  visiting  a  lady,  against 
whose  arrest  he  had  struggled,  locked  up  in  Saint- 
Lazare  for  months,  convicted,  and  sent  to  the  Con- 
ciergerie.  He  was  guillotined  in  Place  de  la  Nation 
on  July  26,  1794,  only  the  day  before  Robespierre's 
fall,  and  was  one  of  the  last  and  noblest  sacrifices  to 
the  Terror.  We  shall  look  on  his  burial-place  in  our 
later  rambles.  Muller  has  made  Andre  de  Chenier  the 
central  figure  of  his  "  Roll-Call,"  now  in  the  Louvre, 
He  sits  looking  toward  us  with  eyes  that  see  visions, 
and  his  expression  seems  full  of  the  thought  to  which 
he  gave  utterance  when  led  out  to  execution :  "  I  have 
done  nothing  for  posterity,  and  yet,"  tapping  his  fore- 
head, "  I  had  something  here !  " 

In  1795  this  little  house  was  surrounded  by  a  great 
crowd  of  citizens  come  to  bury  Louis  de  Chenier,  the 
father.  The  Section  of  Brutus  guarded  the  bier,  draped 
with  blue  set  with  silver  stars,  to  suggest  the  immor- 
tality of  the  soul !  And  they  gave  every  honor  they 
could  invent  to  the  "  Pompe  fancbre  d'un  Citoyen  Ver- 

tucux,"  whose  worthy  son  they  had  beheaded. 
Vol.  I.— 16. 


242  THE   STONES    OF  TARIS 

Joseph-Marie  de  Chenier  lived  for  many  years  under 
suspicion  of  having  given  his  assent  if  not  his  aid  to  his 
brother's  death,  albeit  the  mother  always  asserted  that 
he  had  tried  to  save  Andre.  Joseph  was  a  fiery  patriot, 
and  a  man  of  genius  withal.  He  wrote  the  words  of 
the  "  Chant  du  Depart  "  which,  set  to  music  by  Mehul, 
proved  almost  as  stirring  as  the  "  Marseillaise  "  to  the 
pulses  of  the  Patriots.  Music  was  one  of  the  potent  in- 
toxicants of  the  time,  and  the  Revolution  was  played 
and  sung  along  to  the  strains  of  these  two  airs,  and 
of  "  C,a  ira  "  and  the  "  Carmagnole."  The  classic  style, 
which  had  hitherto  prevailed,  gave  way  before  the  pal- 
try sentimentality  and  the  tinkling  bombast  of  the  music 
adored  by  the  mob.  David  planned  processions  march- 
ing to  patriotic  airs,  and  shallow  operas  were  performed 
in  the  streets.  Yet  Rouget-deTIsle,  the  captain  of 
engineers  who  had  given  them  the  "  Marseillaise,"  was 
cashiered  and  put  into  a  cell ;  being  freed,  he  was  left 
to  starve,  and  no  aid  came  to  him  from  the  Empire  or 
the  Bourbons,  naturally  enough.  Louis-Philippe's  gov- 
ernment found  him  in  sad  straits,  in  that  poor  house 
No.  21  of  the  poor  Passage  Saulnier,  and  ordered  a 
small  pension  to  be  paid  to  him  during  his  life.  His 
death  came  in  1836. 

Joseph-Marie  de  Chenier  was  a  playwright,  also,  and 
in  [798  he  had  created  a  sensation  by  his  "Charles 
IX.,"  produced  at  the  Comedie  Franchise,  now  the 
Odeon.  In  the  part  of  the  King,  wonderfully  made 
up  and  costumed,  Talma  won  his  first  notable  triumph. 
"  This  play,"  cried  Danton   from  the  pit,  "  will  kill 


THE   PARIS   Ofi    THE  REVOLUTION  243 

royalty  as  '  Figaro  '  killed  the  nobility."  Joseph-Marie 
lived,  not  too  reputably,  but  very  busily,  until  January 
10,  181 1 ;  a  fussy  politician,  a  member  of  the  Conven- 
tion, of  the  Council  of  Five  Hundred,  and  of  the  Insti- 
tute, Section  of  the  French  Tongue  and  Literature,  al- 
ways detested  by  his  associates,  by  the  Emperor,  and  by 
the  common  people. 

When  the  Place  Dauphine  of  Henri  IV.  was  finished, 
the  new  industry  of  the  spectacle-makers  established 
itself  in  the  same'  buildings  we  see  to-day,  and  gave  to 
the  place  the  name  of  Quai  des  Lunettes.  Later  came 
the  engravers,  who  found  all  the  light  they  needed  in 
these  rooms,  open  on  three  sides.  Among  them  was  a 
master-engraver,  one  Phlipon,  bringing  his  daughter, 
Marie-Jeanne — her  pet  name  being  Manon — from  the 
house  of  her  birth,  in  1754,  in  Rue  de  la  Lanterne,  now 
widened  into  Rue  de  la  Cite.  It  is  not  known  whether 
the  site  of  that  house  is  under  the  Hotel-Dieu  or  the 
Marche-aux-Fleurs.  Their  new  home  stood,  and  still 
stands,  on  the  corner  of  the  northern  quay,  and  is  now 
numbered  28  Place  Dauphine  and  41  Quai  de  l'Hor- 
loge.  The  small  window  of  the  second  floor  lights  the 
child's  alcove  bedroom,  where  this  "  daughter  of  the 
Seine  " — so  Madame  Roland  dubs  herself  in  her  "  Me- 
moirs " — looked  out  on  the  river,  and  up  at  the  sky, 
from  over  Pont  au  Change  to  beyond  the  heights  of 
Chaillot,  when  she  could  lift  her  eyes  from  her  Plu- 
tarch, and  her  thoughts  from  the  altar  she  was  planning 
to  raise  to  Rousseau.  It  must  be  owned  that  this  all 
too-serious  girl  was  a  prig;  a  creature  over- fed  for  its 


244  THE  STONES   OF  PARIS 

size,  the  word  has  been  happily  defined.  At  the  age  of 
eleven,  she  was  sent  to  the  school  of  the  "  Dames  de  la 
Congregation,"  in  the  Augustinian  convent  in  Rue 
Neuve-Saint-Etienne.  It  has  been  told  how  that  an- 
cient street  was  cut  in  half  by  Rue  Monge.  In  its  east- 
ern section,  now  named  Rue  de  Navarre,  was  Manon's 
school,  directly  above  the  Roman  amphitheatre,  dis- 
covered only  of  late  years  in  the  course  of  excavations 
in  this  quarter.  The  portion  that  is  left  of  this  impres- 
sive relic  is  in  good  preservation  and  in  good  keeping. 
Her  school-days  done,  the  girl  spent  several  years  in 
this  house  before  us,  until  her  mother's  death,  and  her 
father's  tipsiness,  sent  her  back  to  her  convent  for  a  few 
months.  Then,  having  refused  the  many  suitors  who 
had  thronged  about  her  in  her  own  home,  she  found 
the  philosopher  she  wanted  for  a  husband  in  Jean- 
Marie  Roland  de  la  Platriere,  a  man  much  older  than 
she ;  lank,  angular,  yellow,  bald,  "  rather  respectable 
than  seductive,"  in  the  words  of  the  girl-friend  who 
had  introduced  him.  But  Manon  Phlipon  doubtless 
idealized  this  wooden  formalist  who  adored  her,  as  she 
idealized  herself  and  all  her  surroundings,  including 
The  People,  who  turned  and  rent  her  at  the  last.  She 
gave  to  her  husband  duty  and  loyalty,  and  it  was  not 
until  she  counted  herself  dead  to  earth  and  its  tempta- 
tions, in  her  cell  at  Sainte-Pelagie,  that  she  addressed 
her  last  farewell  to  him,  whom  "  I  dare  not  name,  one 
whom  the  most  terrible  of  passions  has  not  kept  from 
respecting  the  barriers  of  virtue."  This  farewell  was 
meant  for  Franqois-Leonard-Nicolas  Buzot,  Girondist 


%sd 


- . 


IB       3fo 


V 


,        : 


Wi^n-fel 


The  Girlhood  Home  of  Madame  Roland. 


THE   PARIS   OF  THE  REVOLUTION  245 

member  of  the  Assembly  and  later  of  the  Convention. 
He  remained  unnamed  and  unknown,  until  his  name 
and  their  secret  were  told  by  a  bundle  of  old  letters, 
found  on  a  book-stall  on  Quai  Voltaire  in  1864.  She 
had  met  him  first  when  her  husband  came  from  Lyons, 
with  petitions  to  the  Assembly,  in  February,  1791,  and 
took  rooms  at  the  Hotel  Britannique,  in  Rue  Guene- 
gaud.  Her  salon  soon  became  the  gathering-place  of 
the  Girondists,  where  those  austere  men,  who  consid- 
ered themselves  the  sole  salvation  of  France,  were 
austerely  regaled  with  a  bowl  of  sugar  and  a  carafe  of 
water.  Their  hostess  could  not  bother  with  frivolities, 
she,  who  in  her  deadly  earnestness,  renounced  the  the- 
atre and  pictures,  and  all  the  foolish  graces  of  life ! 
The  Hotel  Britannique  was  the  house  now  numbered 
12  Rue  Guenegaud,  a  wide-fronted,  many-windowed 
mansion  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Its  stone  steps 
within  are  well  worn,  its  iron  rail  is  good,  its  second 
floor — the  Roland  apartment — still  shows  traces  of  the 
ancient  decorations. 

Buzot  lived  at  No.  3  Quai  Malaquais,  an  ancient 
mansion  now  replaced  by  the  modern  structure  be- 
tween the  seventeenth-century  houses  numbered  1  and 
5.  For  when  the  Convention  outlawed  the  Girondists, 
and  Buzot  fled,  it  was  decreed  that  his  dwelling  should 
be  levelled  to  the  ground,  and  on  its  site  should  be 
placed  a  notice :  "  La  fitt  la  maison  du  roi  Buzot."  So 
that  it  would  seem  that  his  colleagues  of  the  Conven- 
tion had  found  him  an  insufferably  Superior  Person. 

Leaving  this  apartment  on  his  appointment  to  office 


246  THE   STONES    OF   PARIS 

in  1792,  Roland  took  his  wife  to  the  gorgeous  salons 
of  the  Ministry  of  the  Interior,  in  the  hotel  built  by 
Leveau  for  the  Comte  de  Lionne,  and  beautified  later  by 
Calonne.  It  occupied  the  site  of  the  present  annex  of 
the  Bank  of  France  just  off  Rue  des  Petits-Champs, 
between  Rues  Marsollier  and  Dalayrac.  Here,  during 
his  two  terms  of  office  in  1792  and  1793,  Roland  had  the 
aid  of  his  wife's  pen,  as  well  as  the  allurements  of  her 
personal  influence,  in  the  cause  to  which  she  had  de- 
voted herself.  The  masculine  strength  of  her  pen  was 
weakened,  it  is  true,  by  too  sharp  a  feminine  point,  and 
she  embittered  the  Court,  the  Cordeliers,  the  Jacobins, 
all  equally  against  her  and  her  party.  For  "  this  woman 
who  was  a  great  man,"  in  Louis  Blanc's  true  words, 
was  as  essentially  womanly  as  was  Marie  Antoinette; 
and  these  two  most  gracious  and  pathetic  figures  of 
their  time  were  yet  unconscious  workers  for  evil  to 
France.  The  Queen  made  impassable  the  breach  be- 
tween the  throne  and  the  people  ;  Madame  Roland  has- 
tened on  the  Terror.  And  each  of  them  was  doing  ex- 
actly what  she  thought  it  right  to  do ! 

On  January  23,  1793,  two  days  after  the  King's 
death,  Roland  left  office  forever  and  removed  to  a  house 
in  Rue  de  la  Harpe,  opposite  the  Church  of  Saint- 
Cosme.  That  church  stood  on  the  triangle  made  by  the 
meeting  of  Rues  de  l'Ecole-de-Medecine  and  Racine 
with  Boulevard  Saint-Germain.  On  the  eastern  side  of 
that  boulevard,  once  the  eastern  side  of  Rue  de  la 
Harpe,  where  it  meets  modern  Rue  des  Ecoles,  stood 
the  Roland  house.    The  students  and  studentcsses,  who 


THE   PARIS    OF   THE   REVOLUTION  247 

sip  their  coffee  and  beer  on  the  pavement  of  Vachette's, 
are  on  the  scene  of  Madame  Roland's  arrest,  on  the 
night  between  May  31st  and  June  1st.  On  the  former 
day,  seeing  the  end  so  near,  Roland  had  fled.  His  wife 
was  taken  to  the  prison  of  the  Abbaye,  and  given  the  cell 
which  was  to  be  tenanted,  six  weeks  later,  by  Charlotte 
Corday.  Released  on  June  22d  and  returned  to  her 
home  in  Rue  de  laHarpe,she  was  re-arrested  on  the  24th 
and  locked  up  in  Sainte-Pelagie.  It  was  an  old  prison, 
long  kept  for  the  detention  of  "  femmes  et  Hlles,  dont  la 
conduitc  est  oncrense,"  and  its  character  had  not  been 
bettered  by  the  character  of  the  female  prisoners  sent 
there  by  the  Terror.  This  high-minded  woman,  sub- 
jected to  infamous  sights  and  sounds,  preserved  her 
serenity  and  fortitude  in  a  way  to  extort  the  "  stupe- 
fied admiration  "  of  her  fellow-prisoners,  as  one  of 
these  has  testified.  It  was  only  in  her  cell  that  the  great 
heart  gave  way.  There  she  found  solace,  during  her 
four  months'  confinement,  with  Thomson's  "  Seasons," 
"  done  into  choice  French,"  with  Shaftesbury  and  an 
English  dictionary,  with  Tacitus,  and  her  girlhood 
companion,  Plutarch.  And  here  she  busied  herself  with 
her  "  Memoirs,"  "  writing  under  the  axe,"  in  her  own 
phrase.  In  the  solitude  of  her  cell,  indeed,  she  was 
sometimes  disturbed  by  the  unseemly  laughter  of  the 
ladies  of  the  Comedie  Francaise,  at  supper  with  the 
prison-governor  in  an  adjacent  cell.  We  shall  see, 
later,  how  these  ladies  came  to  be  here.  More  accept- 
able sounds  might  have  come  almost  to  her  ears ;  that 
of  the  hymn-singing  or  of  the  maiden  laughter  of  the 


248  THE   STONES    OF  PARIS 

girls  in  her  old  convent,  only  a  few  steps  away.  The 
prison-register  contains  her  description,  probably  as 
accurate  as  matter-of-fact :  "  Height,  five  feet ;  hair 
and  eyebrows,  dark  chestnut;  brown  eyes;  medium 
nose;  ordinary  mouth;  oval  face,  round  chin,  high 
forehead,"  From  Sainte-Pelagie  she  went  to  the  Con- 
ciergerie  on  November  ist,  the  day  after  the  guillotin- 
ing of  the  Girondists,  and  thence  in  eight  days  to  her 
own  death.  It  has  been  told,  by  every  writer,  that  she 
could  look  over  at  her  girlhood  home,  as  her  tumbril 
crossed  Pont  au  Change.  It  has  not  been  told,  so 
plainly  as  it  deserves,  that  her  famous  utterance  on  the 
platform  was  made  fine  for  historic  purposes,  as  was 
done  with  Cambronne's  magnificent  monosyllable  at 
Waterloo.  She  really  said :  "  O  Libcrtb,  comme  on  t'a 
jouce!"  With  these  words,  natural  and  spontaneous 
and  without  pose,  she  is,  indeed,  "  beautiful,  amazonian, 
graceful  to  the  eye,  more  so  to  the  mind." 

Within  a  few  days  of  her  death  died  her  husband 
and  her  lover.  Roland,  on  hearing  of  her  execution, 
in  his  hiding-place  near  Rouen,  thrust  his  cane-sword 
into  his  breast ;  Buzot,  wandering  and  starving  in  the 
fields,  was  found  half-eaten  by  wolves.  She  had  con- 
fided her  daughter  Eudora  and  her  "  Memoirs  "  to  the 
loyal  friend  Bosc,  who  hid  the  manuscript  in  the  forest 
of  Montmorenci,  and  in  1795  published  it  for  the  daugh- 
ter's benefit.  The  original  is  said  to  be  in  existence,  on 
coarse  gray  paper,  stained  with  her  tears.  Sainte- 
Beuve  speaks  of  them  as  "  delicious  and  indispensable 
memories,"  deserving  a  place  "  beside  the  most  sub- 


THE   PARIS   OF   THE   REVOLUTION  249 

lime  and  eloquent  effusions  of  a  brave  yet  tender  philos- 
ophy." When  he  praises  that  style,  clearer  and  more 
concise  than  that  of  Madame  de  Stael,  "  that  other 
daughter  of  Rousseau,"  he  does  not  say  all ;  he  might 
have  added  that,  like  Rousseau,  she  occasionally  speaks 
of  matters  not  quite  convenient  to  hear. 

It  is  difficult  to  refrain  from  undue  admiration  and 
pity,  to  remain  temperate  and  modest,  when  one  dwells 
on  the  character  and  qualities,  the  blameless  life  and 
the  ignominious  death,  of  Marie- Jean- Antoine-Nicolas 
Caritat,  Marquis  de  Condorcet.  We  may  look  up  at  his 
thoughtful  face  in  bronze  on  Quai  Conti,  alongside  the 
Mint,  where  he  lived  in  the  entresol  of  the  just  com- 
pleted building,  when  appointed  Director  of  the  Hotel 
de  la  Monnaie  by  his  old  friend  Turgot,  in  1774.  We 
may  look  upon  the  house  in  Rue  Servandoni  where  he 
hid,  and  from  which  he  escaped  to  his  death.  His  other 
Paris  homes  have  no  existence  now.  His  college  of 
Navarre — oldest  of  all  those  in  the  University — has 
been  made  over  into  the  Ecole  Polytechnique ;  and  the 
house  he  built  for  himself  in  Rue  Chantereine,  which 
was  afterward  owned  by  Josephine  Beauharnais,  has 
long  since  disappeared.  When  only  twenty-two  years 
of  age  he  wrote  his  famous  essay  on  the  Integral  Cal- 
culus, when  twenty-six  he  was  elected  to  the  Academy 
of  Sciences.  Made  Perpetual  Secretary  of  that  body 
in  1777,  it  came  in  the  course  of  his  duties  to  deliver 
eulogies  on  Pascal,  d'Alembert,  Buffon,  and  Franklin, 
and  others  of  the  great  guild  of  science.  These  are 
more  than  perfunctory  official  utterances,  they  are  of 


250 


THE   STONES   OF   PARTS 


an  eloquence  that  shows  his  lovable  character  as  well 
as  his  scientific  authority.  He  contributed  largely  to 
Diderot's  Encyclopaedia,  and  put  forth  many  astronom- 
ical, mathematical,  and  theological  treatises  during  his 
busy  life.  He  wrote  earnestly  in  favor  of  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  American  colonies,  and  was  one  of  the 
earliest  advocates  of  the  people's  cause  in  France.  But 
he  was  much  more  than  a  man  of  science  and  of  let- 
ters ;  he  was  a  man  with  a  great  soul,  "  the  Seneca  of 
the  modern  school,"  says  Lamartine ;  the  most  kindly 
and  tolerant  friend  of  humanity,  and  protector  of  its 
rights,  since  Socrates.  He  believed  in  the  indefinite 
perfectibility  of  the  human  race,  and  he  wrote  his  last 
essay,  proving  its  progress  upward,  while  hiding  in  a 
garret  from  those  not  yet  quite  perfect  fellow-beings, 
who  were  howling  for  his  head !  He  was  beloved  by 
Benjamin  Franklin  and  by  Thomas  Paine.  Members 
of  the  Convention  together,  he  and  Paine  prepared  the 
new  Constitution  of  1793,  in  which  political  document 
they  found  no  place  for  theological  dogma.  Robes- 
pierre prevented  the  adoption  of  this  Constitution,  hav- 
ing taken  God  under  his  own  protection.  Condorcet 
made  uncompromising  criticism,  and  was  put  on  the 
list  of  those  to  be  suspected  and  got  rid  of.  Too  broad 
to  ally  himself  with  the  Girondists,  he  was  yet  pro- 
scribed with  them,  on  June  2,  1793.  His  friends  had 
forced  him  to  go  into  hiding,  until  he  might  escape. 
They  had  asked  Madame  Vernet — widow  of  the  paint- 
er Claude-Joseph,  mother  of  Carle,  grandmother  of 
Horace — to  give  shelter  to  one  of  the  proscribed,  and 


THE    PARIS    OF    THE    REVOLUTION1  251 

she  had  asked  only  if  he  were  an  honest  man.  This 
loyal  woman  concealed  him  in  her  garret  for  nearly 
one  year,  and  would  have  kept  him  longer,  but  that  he 
feared  for  her  safety,  and  for  that  of  his  wife  and 
daughter,  who  might  be  tracked  in  their  visits  to  him 
by  night.  He  had  finished  his  "  Esquisse  d'un  Tableau 
historique  des  Progres  de  l'Esprit  humain,"  full  of  hope 
for  humanity,  with  no  word  of  reproach  or  repining, 
and  then  he  wrote  his  last  words :  "  Advice  of  one  pro- 
scribed, to  his  Daughter."  This  is  to  be  read  to-day 
for  its  lofty  spirit.  He  gives  her  the  names  of  certain 
good  men  who  will  befriend  her,  and  among  them  is 
Benjamin  Franklin  Bache,  the  son  of  our  Franklin's 
daughter  Sally,  who  had  been  in  Paris  with  his  grand- 
father. 

Then,  this  letter  finished,  early  on  the  morning  of 
April  5,  1794,  he  left  it  on  his  table  and  slipped  out, 
unseen  by  the  good  widow  Vernet,  from  the  three- 
storied  plaster-fronted  house  now  No.  15  of  Rue  Ser- 
vandoni,  and  still  unaltered,  as  is  almost  the  entire 
street.  Through  it  he  hurried  to  Rue  de  Vaugirard, 
where  he  stood  undecided  for  a  moment,  the  prison  of 
the  Luxembourg  on  his  left,  and  the  prison  of  the 
Carmelites  on  his  right,  both  full  of  his  friends.  And 
on  the  walls,  all  about,  were  placards  with  big-lettered 
warning  that  death  was  the  penalty  for  harboring  the 
proscribed.  Here  at  the  corner,  he  ran  against  one  Sar- 
ret,  cousin  of  Madame  Vernet,  who  went  with  him, 
showing  the  way  through  narrow  streets  to  the  Bar- 
riere  du  Maine,  which  was  behind  the  present  station 


25a  THE  STONES   OF  PARIS 

of  Mont-Parnasse.  Safely  out  of  the  town,  the  two 
men  took  the  road  to  Fontenay-aux-Roses,  and  at 
night  Sarret  turned  back.  Condorcet  lost  his  way, 
and  wandered  about  the  fields  for  two  days,  sleeping 
in  the  quarries  of  Clamart,  until  driven  by  hunger 
into  a  wretched  inn.  Demanding  an  omelet,  he  was 
asked  how  many  eggs  he  would  have ;  the  ignorant- 
learned  man  ordered  a  dozen,  too  many  for  the  work- 
ing-man he  was  personating,  and  suspicions  were 
aroused.  The  villagers  bound  and  dragged  him  to 
the  nearest  guardhouse  at  Bourg-la-Reine.  He  died 
in  his  cell  that  night,  April  7,  1794,  by  poison,  it  is  be- 
lieved. For  he  wore  a  ring  containing  poison ;  the 
same  sort  of  poison,  it  is  said,  that  was  carried  by  Napo- 
leon, with  which  he  tried — or  pretended  to  try — to  kill 
himself  at  Fontainebleau.  In  the  modern  village  of 
Bourg-la-Reine,  five  and  a  half  miles  from  Paris,  the 
principal  square  bears  the  name  of  Condorcet,  and  holds 
his  bust  in  marble. 

"  La  Veuve  Condorcet "  appears  in  the  Paris  Bottin 
every  year  until  1822,  when  she  died.  She  had  been 
imprisoned  on  the  identification  of  her  husband's  body, 
but  was  released  after  Robespierre's  death.  She  passed 
the  Duplay  house  every  day  during  those  years,  going 
to  her  little  shop  at  232  Rue  Saint-Honore.  There  she 
had  set  up  a  linen  business  on  the  ground  floor,  and 
above,  she  painted  portraits  in  a  small  way.  She  was  a 
woman  of  rare  beauty  and  of  fine  mind,  with  all  wom- 
anly graces  and  all  womanly  courage.  Married  in  1786, 
and  much  younger  than  her  husband,  timorous  before 


THE  PARIS   OF  THE  REVOLUTION*  253 

his  real  age  and  his  seeming  austerity,  she  had  grown 
up  to  him,  and  had  learned  to  love  that  "  volcano  cov- 
ered with  snow,"  as  his  friend  d'Alembert  had  said  he 
was.  She  had  a  pretty  gift  with  her  pen,  and  her  trans- 
lation into  French  of  Adam  Smith's  "  Theory  of  Moral 
Sentiments  "is  still  extant.  Her  little  salon  came  to  be 
greatly  frequented  in  her  beautiful  old  age. 

Condorcet's  famous  fellow-worker  in  science,  An- 
toine-Laurent  Lavoisier,  was  guillotined  in  May,  1794, 
the  two  men  having  the  same  number  of  years,  fifty- 
one.  He.was  condemned,  not  for  being  a  chemist,  albeit 
his  enlightened  judges  were  of  the  opinion  that  "  the 
Republic  has  no  need  of  chemists,"  but  because  he  had 
filled,  with  justice  and  honesty,  his  office  of  Farmer- 
General  under  royalty.  Their  contemporaries  of  near- 
ly equal  age,  Gaspard  Monge  and  Claude-Louis  Ber- 
thollet,  escaped  the  guillotine,  and  were  among  the 
savants  in  the  train  of  General  Bonaparte  in  his  Italian 
and  Egyptian  campaigns.  After  many  years  of  use- 
ful labors,  they  died  peacefully  under  the  Restora- 
tion. 

Pierre- Simon  Laplace,  of  almost  equal  years  with 
these  four,  lived  to  a  greater  age,  and  received  higher 
honors  from  the  Emperor  and  the  Bourbons.  Coming 
from  his  birth-place  in  Calvados  in  1767,  his  first  Paris 
home  to  be  found  is  in  Rue  des  Noyers;  one  side  of 
which  ancient  street  now  forms  that  southern  section 
of  Boulevard  Saint-Germain  opposite  Rue  des  Anglais, 
its  battered  houses  seeming  to  shrink  back  from  the 
publicity  thrust  upon  them.    In  that  one  now  numbered 


254  THE   STONES    OF   PARIS 

57  in  the  boulevard,  formerly  No.  33  Rue  des  Noyers, 
Alfred  de  Musset  was  born  in  1810;  and  in  the  same 
row  lived  Laplace  in  1777.  In  1787  we  find  him  in  Rue 
Mazarine,  and  in  1790  in  Rue  Louis-le-Grand,  and  this 
latter  residence  represents  his  only  desertion  of  the 
University  side  of  the  Seine.  He  returned  to  that  bank 
when  placed  by  the  Consuls  in  the  Senate,  and  made  his 
home  in  1801  at  No.  24  Rue  des  Grands-Augustins,  and 
in  the  following  year  at  No.  2  Rue  Christine.  These 
stately  mansions  of  that  period,  only  a  step  apart,  remain 
as  he  left  them.  When  Laplace  was  made  Chancellor 
of  the  Senate,  in  1805,  his  official  residence  was  in  the 
Luxembourg,  and  there  it  continued  until  1815,  the  year 
of  the  Restoration.  His  private  residence,  from  1805 
to  1809,  was  at  No.  6  Rue  de  Tournon,  a  house  still 
standing  in  all  its  senatorial  respectability.  He  gave 
this  up,  and  again  took  up  his  quarters  in  the  Luxem- 
bourg, when  made  a  Count  of  the  Empire  and  Vice- 
President  of  the  Senate. 

From  the  Medician  palace,  which  appears  in  the  Bot- 
tin  of  those  years  as  simple  No.  19  Rue  de  Vaugirard, 
Laplace  removed  to  No.  51  of  that  street,  when  the  re- 
turned Bourbons  made  him  a  Peer  of  France.  This 
house,  near  Rue  d'Assas — named  for  the  Chevalier 
Nicolas  d'Assas,  the  heroic  captain  of  the  regiment  of 
Auvergne  during  the  Seven  Years'  War — is  unaltered 
since  his  time.  His  last  change  of  abode  was  made  in 
18 18,  to  Rue  du  Bac,  100,  where  he  died  in  1827.  It  is  a 
mansion  of  old-fashioned  dignity,  with  a  large  court  in 
front  and  a  larger  garden  behind,  and  is  now  numbered 


THE  PARIS    OF   THE   REVOLUTION-  255 

108.  The  growing  importance  of  his  successive  dwell- 
ings, every  one  of  which  may  be  visited  to-day,  mark 
his  growth  in  importance  as  a  man  of  state.  The 
growth  of  the  man  of  science  is  represented  by  his 
colossal  "  La  Mecanique  Celeste,"  which  first  appeared 
in  1799,  and  was  continued  by  successive  volumes  until 
its  completion  in  1825.  Its  title,  rather  than  his  titles, 
should  be  inscribed  on  his  monument. 

A  little  later  than  these  famous  confreres,  Georges 
Cuvier  appears  in  Paris — in  Hugo's  half-truth — "  with 
one  eye  on  the  book  of  Genesis  and  the  other  on  nature, 
endeavoring  to  please  bigoted  reaction  by  reconciling 
fossils  with  texts,  and  making  the  mastodons  support 
Moses."  His  first  home,  at  the  present  40  Rue  de 
Seine,  is  a  fine  old-fashioned  mansion.  He  removed  to 
the  opposite  side  of  that  street  in  18 10,  and  there  re- 
mained until  1816,  his  house  being  now  replaced  by 
the  new  and  characterless  structure  at  No.  35.  Full  of 
character,  however,  is  his  official  residence  as  Professor 
in  the  Jardin  des  Plantes,  which  took  again  its  ancient 
title  of  Jardin  du  Roi  during  the  Restoration.  "  La 
Maison  de  Cuvier  "  is  a  charming  old  building  near 
the  garden-entrance  in  Rue  Cuvier,  and  within  is  the 
bust  of  this  most  gifted  teacher  of  his  time.  His  genu- 
ine devotion  to  science  and  his  tolerance  for  all  policies 
carried  him  through  the  several  changes  of  government 
during  his  life.  He  completed  the  Napoleonic  con- 
quest of  Italy  and  Holland  by  his  introduction  of  the 
French  methods  of  education,  perfected  by  him.  The 
Bourbons  made  him  Baron  and  Chancellor  of  the  Uni- 


256  THE   STONES   OF  PARIS 

versity,  and  the  Orleans  king  elevated  him  to  the  Peer- 
age of  France.    He  died  in  1832. 

Paul-Francois-Jean-Nicolas,  Comte  de  Barras — sol- 
dier, adventurer,  a  power  in  the  Convention,  the  power 
of  the  Directory,  practically  dictator  for  a  while — has 
added  to  the  hilarity  of  the  sceptical  student  of  history 
by  his  "  Memoirs,"  kept  concealed  since  his  death,  in 
1829,  until  their  publication  within  a  few  years.  Splen- 
didly mendacious  in  these  pages  as  he  was  in  life,  Barras 
posed  always  as  the  man  on  horseback  of  his  "  15 
Vendcmiaire."  On  that  day,  unwittingly  yet  actually, 
he  put  into  the  saddle — where  he  stayed — his  young 
friend  Buonaparte,  whose  qualities  he  had  discovered 
at  the  siege  of  Toulon.  This  artillery  officer,  while 
planting  his  batteries  to  cover  every  approach  to  the 
Tuileries,  where  cowered  the  frightened  Convention, 
took  personal  command  of  the  guns  that  faced  Saint- 
Roch.  The  front  of  that  church  still  shows  the  scars  of 
the  bullets  that  stopped  the  rush  of  the  Sections  in  that 
direction.  This  battery  was  placed  at  the  Rue  Saint- 
Honore  end  of  the  narrow  lane  leading  from  that  street 
to  the  gardens  of  the  Tuileries — there  being  then  no 
Rue  de  Rivoli,  you  will  bear  in  mind.  This  lane  was 
known  as  Rue  du  Dauphin,  because  of  the  royal  son 
who  had  used  it,  going  between  the  Tuileries  and  the 
church ;  after  that  day,  it  was  popularly  called  Rue  du 
13-Vendemiaire,  until  it  received  its  official  appellation 
of  Rue  Saint-Roch,  when  widened  and  aligned  in  1807. 
At  this  time  there  were  only  two  houses  in  the  street, 
near  its  southern  end,  and  one  of  them  was  a  hotel- 


THE   PARIS    OF   THE   REVOLUTION  257 


garni,  in  which  young  Buonaparte  caught  a  short  sleep 
on  that  night  of  October  5,  1795.  The  oldest  struct- 
ure in  Rue  Saint-Roch  to-day  is  that  with  the  two  num- 
bers 4  and  6,  and  it  is  known  to  have  been  already  a 
hotel- garni  in  the  first  years  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
when  it  was  refaced.  So  that  it  is  well  within  belief  that 
we  have  found  here  Buonaparte's  head-quarters  for 
that  one  night. 

Let  us  now,  crossing  the  river,  get  on  the  ground  of 
positive  proof,  safe  from  doubts  or  conjectures.  The 
Duchesse  d'Abrantes,  wife  of  that  adorable  ruffian, 
Andoche  Junot,  made  a  duke  in  1807  by  the  Emperor, 
writes  in  her  "  Memoirs  " :  "  To  this  day,  whenever  I 
pass  along  Quai  Conti,  I  cannot  help  looking  up  at  the 
garret  windows  at  the  left  angle  of  the  house,  on  the 
third  floor.  That  was  Napoleon's  chamber,  when  he 
paid  us  a  visit ;  and  a  neat  little  room  it  was.  My 
brother  used  to  occupy  the  one  next  it."  Madame 
Junot  had  been  Mile.  Laure  Permon,  whose  father,  an 
army  contractor,  had  brought  his  family  to  Paris  early 
in  1785,  and  leased  for  his  residence  the  Hotel  Sillcry, 
formerly  the  Petit  Hotel  Guenegaud.  Madame  Per- 
mon, a  Corsican  lady,  had  been  an  early  friend  of  Ma- 
dame Buonaparte,  and  had  rocked  young  Buonaparte 
in  his  cradle ;  so  that  he  was  called  by  his  first  name  in 
her  family,  as  her  daughter  shows  in  this  quotation. 
Finding  him  at  the  Ecole  Royale  Militaire  in  Paris,  she 
invited  him  to  her  house  for  frequent  visits,  once  for  a 
week's  stay,  whenever  permission  could  be  got  from 
the  school  authorities.    He  was  a  lank,  cadaverous,  dis- 

VOL.    1.— 17 


258 


THE  STONES   OF  PARIS 


hevelled  lad,  solitary,  taciturn,  and  morose ;   brooding 
over  the  poverty  that  had  forced  him  to  seek  an  unpaid- 


No.  13  Quai  Conti. 


for  scholarship,  and  not  readily  making  friends  with  the 
more  fortunate  Albert  Pcrmon.  Yet  he  came  often,  and 
was  nowhere  so  content  as  in  this  house  before  us.    It 


THE  PARIS   OF  THE  REVOLUTION  259 

stands  far  back  from  the  front  of  the  quay,  half-hidden 
between  the  Institute  and  the  Mint,  and  is  numbered  13 
Quai  Conti,  and  its  entrance  is  on  the  side  at  No.  2 
Impasse  Conti.  Its  upper  portion  is  now  occupied  by  a 
club  of  American  art  students.  Constructed  by  Man- 
sart,  its  rooms  are  of  admirable  loftiness  and  propor- 
tion, and  retain  much  of  their  sixteenth-century  decora- 
tion. Here  in  this  salon  after  dinner,  young  Buona- 
parte would  storm  about  the  "  indecent  luxury  "  of 
his  schoolmates,  or  sit  listening  to  Madame  Permon, 
soothed  by  her  reminiscent  prattle  about  Corsica  and 
his  mother,  to  whom  he  always  referred  as  Madame 
Letitia.  Here  he  first  showed  himself  to  the  daugh- 
ters in  his  new  sub-lieutenant's  uniform,  before  join- 
ing his  regiment  on  October  30,  1785,  and  they  laughed 
at  his  thin  legs  in  their  big  boots. 

The  Ecole  Superieure  de  Guerre,  commonly  called 
the  "  Ecole  Militaire,"  remains  nearly  as  when  con- 
structed under  Louis  XV.,  but  it  is  impossible  to  fix  on 
the  room  allotted  to  this  student  during  his  year  there 
— a  small,  bare  room,  with  an  iron  cot,  one  wooden 
chair,  and  a  wash-stand  with  drawers.  The  chapel, 
now  unused,  remains  just  as  it  was  when  he  received 
his  confirmation  in  it.  He  arrived  at  this  school,  from 
his  preparatory  school  at  Brienne,  on  the  evening  of 
October  19,  1784,  one  of  a  troop  of  five  lads  in  the 
charge  of  a  priest.  They  had  disembarked,  late  that 
afternoon,  at  Port  Saint-Paul,  from  the  huge,  clumsy 
boat  that  brought  freight  and  passengers,  twice  a  week, 
from  Burgundy  and  the  Aube  down  the  Seine.    The 


26o  THE   STONES    OF  PARIS 

priest  gave  the  lads  a  simple  dinner  near  their  landing- 
place,  and  led  them  across  the  river  and  along  the 
southern  quays — where  the  penniless  young  Buona- 
parte bought  a  "  Gil-Bias  "  from  a  stall,  and  a  comrade 
in  funds  paid  for  it — and,  stopping  for  prayers  at  Saint- 
Germain-des-Pres,  he  handed  them  over  to  the  school 
authorities. 

From  that  moment  every  hour  of  young  Buona- 
parte's year  in  Paris  can  be  accounted  for.  And  no 
foundation  can  be  discovered  or  invented  for  the  fable, 
mendaciously  upheld  by  the  tablet,  placed  Ly  the  Sec- 
ond Empire  in  the  hallway  of  No.  5  Quai  Conti,  which 
claims  a  garret  in  that  tall,  up-climbing,  old  house  as 
his  lodging  at  that  time  or  at  any  later  time.  This 
flimsy  legend  need  no  longer  be  listened  to.  Not  far 
away,  however,  is  a  garret  that  did  harbor  the  sub- 
lieutenant in  the  autumn  of  1787.  It  is  to  M.  Lenotre 
that  we  owe  this  delightful  find.  Arriving  in  Paris 
from  Corsica,  after  exactly  two  years  of  absence, 
Buonaparte  took  room  No.  9,  on  the  third  floor  of 
the  Hotel  de  Cherbourg,  Rue  du  Four-Saint-Honore. 
That  street  is  now  Rue  Vauvilliers,  its  eastern  side 
taken  up  by  the  Halles,  and  its  present  No.  33,  on 
the  western  side,  is  the  former  hotcl-garni,  quite  un- 
changed as  to  its  fabric.  Here  he  was  always  writ- 
ing in  his  room,  going  out  only  for  the  frugal  meals 
that  cost  him  a  few  sous,  and  here  he  had  his  first 
amorous  adventure,  recited  by  him  in  cynical  detail 
under  the  date:  "  Jcudi  22  Novcmbre  1787,  a  Paris, 
Hotel  de  Cherbourg,  Rite  du  Four-Saint-Honore." 


THE   PARIS    OF   THE   REVOLUTION  261 

On  August  10,  1792,  Buonaparte  saw  the  mob  carry 
and  sack  the  Tuileries.  He  was  in  disgrace  with  the 
army  authorities,  having  practically  deserted  to  Cor- 
sica, and  he  had  come  back  for  reinstatement  and  a 
job.  In  his  Saint-Helena  "  Memorial,"  he  says  that 
he  was  then  lodging  at  the  Hotel  de  Metz  in  Rue  du 
Mail.  This  is  evidently  the  same  lodging  placed  by 
many  writers  in  Rue  d'Aboukir,  for  many  of  the  large 
houses  that  fronted  on  the  first-named  street  extended 
through  to  the  latter,  as  shall  be  shown  later.  The 
hotel  is  gone,  and  the  great  mercantile  establishment 
at  No.  22  Rue  du  Mail  covers  its  site. 

Gone,  too,  is  the  shabbily  furnished  little  villa  in 
Rue  Chantereine,  where  he  first  called  on  Josephine 
de  Beauharnais,  where  he  married  that  faded  coquette 
— dropping  the  u  from  his  name  then,  in  March,  1796 
— and  whence  he  went  to  his  18  Brumaire.  The  court- 
yard, filled  with  resplendent  officers  on  that  morning, 
is  now  divided  between  the  two  courts  numbered  58 
and  60  Rue  de  la  Victoire ;  that  name  having  been 
officially  granted  to  the  street,  on  his  return  from  his 
Italian  campaign  in  1797.  The  villa,  kept  by  the  Em- 
peror, and  lent  at  times  to  some  favorite  general,  was 
not  entirely  torn  down  until  i860.  Its  site  is  now 
covered  by  the  houses  Nos.  58  and  60. 

Rue  Chantereine  was,  in  those  days,  almost  a  coun- 
try road,  bordered  by  small  villas ;  two  of  them  were 
associated  with  Napoleon  Bonaparte.  In  one  of  them, 
Mile.  Eleonora  Dennelle  gave  birth,  on  December 
13,   1806,  to  a  boy,   who  grew   up  into   a   startling 


262  THE   STONES   OF  PARIS 

likeness  of  the  Emperor,  as  to  face  and  figure,  but 
who  inherited  from  him  only  the  half-madness  of 
genius.  He  lived  through  the  Empire,  the  Restora- 
tion, the  Second  Republic,  the  Second  Empire,  and 
into  the  Republic  that  has  come  to  stay,  dying  on 
April  15,  1881.  To  another  modest  dwelling  in  this 
same  street,  there  came  the  loving  and  devoted  Polish 
lady,  Madame  Walewski,  who  had  thrown  herself  in- 
to the  Emperor's  arms,  when  she  was  full  of  faith  in 
his  intent  to  liberate  her  native  land.  Their  son,  Alex- 
andre Walewski,  born  in  1810,  was  a  brilliant  figure 
in  Paris,  where  he  came  to  reside  after  the  fall  of  War- 
saw. A  gifted  soldier,  diplomat,  and  writer,  he  died 
in  1868. 

So,  of  the  roofs  that  sheltered  the  boyhood  of  Na- 
poleon, three  still  remain.  Of  those  loftier  roofs  that 
sheltered  his  manhood,  there  are  also  three  still  to  be 
seen.  In  the  Paris  Bottin  of  the  first  year  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  the  name  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte  ap- 
pears as  a  member  of  the  Institute,  Section  of  Mechan- 
ism, living  in  the  palace  of  the  Luxembourg.  In  1805 
his  address  is  changed  to  the  palace  of  the  Tuileries, 
and  he  is  qualified  "  Emperor  of  the  French ;  "  enlarg- 
ing that  title  in  1806  to  "  Emperor  of  the  French  and 
King."  The  Tuileries  are  swept  away,  and  Saint- 
Cloud  has  left  only  a  scar.  The  Luxembourg  remains, 
and  so,  too,  the  Palais  de  l'Elysee,  where  he  resided 
for  a  while,  and  the  chateau  of  Malmaison  has  been 
restored  and  refurnished  in  the  style  of  Josephine,  as 
near  as  may  be,  and  filled  with  souvenirs  of  her  and  of 


THE   PARIS   OF    THE    REVOLUTION  263 

her  husband.  Her  body  lies,  with  that  of  her  daugh- 
ter Hortense,  in  the  church  of  the  nearest  village, 
Reuil,  and  his  remains  rest  under  the  dome  of  the 
Invalides — his  last  roof. 

There  is  a  curious  letter,  said  to  be  still  in  existence, 
written  by  young  Buonaparte  to  Talma,  asking  for 
the  loan  of  a  few  francs,  to  be  repaid  "  out  of  the  first 
kingdom  I  conquer."  He  goes  on  to  say  that  he  has 
found  nothing  to  do,  that  Barras  promises  much  and 
does  little,  and  that  the  writer  is  at  the  end  of  his 
resources  and  his  patience.  This  letter  was  evidently 
written  at  that  poverty-stricken  period  between  1792 
and  1795,  when  he  was  idly  tramping  Paris  streets 
with  Junot,  the  lovable  and  generous  comrade  from 
Toulon ;  or  with  Bourrienne,  now  met  first  since  their 
school-days  at  Brienne,  who  was  to  become  the  Em- 
peror's patient  confidential  secretary.  At  that  period 
Talma  had  fought  his  way  to  his  own  throne.  Inti- 
mate as  he  had  been  with  Mirabeau,  Danton,  Des- 
moulins,  Joseph-Marie  de  Chenier  and  David,  he  had, 
also,  made  friends  with  the  Corsican  officer,  either 
during  these  years  of  the  letter  or  probably  earlier. 
He  made  him  free  of  the  stage  of  the  Theatre  Fran- 
gais,  and  lent  him  books.  His  friendship  passed  on  to 
the  general,  the  Consul,  and  the  Emperor,  and  it  was 
gossipped  that  he  had  taught  Bonaparte  to  dress  and 
walk  and  play  Napoleon.  Talma  always  denied  this, 
avowing  that  the  other  man  was,  by  nature  and  train- 
ing, the  greater  actor! 

Joseph-Francois   Talma  used  to  say  that   he  first 


264  THE    STONES    OF  PARIS 

heard  of  a  theatre,  from  seeing  and  asking  about  the 
old  Theatre  de  l'Hotel  de  Bourgogne,  whose  entrance 
was  in  Rue  Mauconseil,  opposite  the  place  of  his  birth, 
on  January  15,  1763.  As  he  grew  up  he  learned  a 
good  deal  more  about  the  theatre,  for  he  went  early 
and  often.  He  was  only  fifteen  when  he  was  one  of 
the  audience  in  the  Theatre  Francais,  on  that  night  of 
the  crowning  of  Voltaire,  and  one  of  the  crowd  that 
tried  to  unharness  the  horses,  and  drag  the  old  man 
from  the  Tuileries  to  his  house  on  the  quay.  By  day 
the  lad  was  learning  dentistry,  his  father's  profession 
— it  was  then  a  trade — and  the  two  went  to  London  to 
practice.  For  a  while  young  Talma  got  experience  in 
that  specialty  from  the  jaws  of  the  sailor-men  at 
Greenwich,  and  got  gayer  and  more  congenial  experi- 
ence in  amateur  theatricals  in  town.  They  returned 
to  Paris,  and  the  father's  sign,  "  M.  Talma,  Dentiste," 
was  hung  by  the  doorway  of  No.  3  Rue  Jean-Jacques- 
Rousseau,  next  to  the  corner  of  Rue  Saint-Honore. 
From  the  house  that  was  there  before  the  present  mod- 
ern structure,  young  Talma  went  across  the  river  to 
the  Comedie  Franchise,  on  the  night  of  November  21, 
1787,  and  made  his  debut  as  Seide  in  "  Mahomet." 

In  our  chapter  on  Moliere,  we  left  the  Comedie 
Franchise,  on  its  opening  night  in  1689,  at  the  house 
in  Rue  de  l'Ancienne-Comedie.  There  it  remained 
for  nearly  a  century,  until  forced,  by  overflowing 
houses,  to  find  a  larger  hall.  While  this  was  in  course 
of  construction  the  company  removed,  in  1770,  to  the 
Salle   des   Machines   in   the   Tuileries,   already  trans- 


THE  PARIS    OF   THE  REVOLUTION-  265 

formed  into  a  theatre  by  the  Regent  for  his  ballets. 
Here  the  troupe  played  until  the  completion  of  the 
new  theatre  in  1782.  That  new  Comedie  Francaise  is 
now  the  Second  Theatre  Francais,  the  Odeon,  the  sec- 
ond largest  hall  in  Paris.  It  was  burned  in  1799  and 
again  in  1818.  In  1789  it  took  the  title  of  Theatre 
National ;  in  1793,  Theatre  de  l'Egalite  was  the  newest 
name  forced  upon  the  unwilling  comedians,  who  were, 
as  always  with  that  profession,  fond  of  swelldom  and 
favorites  of  princes.  The  house  being  in  the  very  cen- 
tre of  the  Cordeliers  quarter,  in  la  Section  Marat, 
there  was  always  constant  friction  between  players 
and  audience,  and  by  1793  this  had  so  exasperated 
the  ruling  powers — the  sans-culottcs — that  nearly  the 
whole  troupe  was  sent  to  prison,  charged  with  hav- 
ing insulted  the  Patriots  on  the  boards,  and  with  hav- 
ing given  "  proofs  of  marked  incivism."  The  ladies 
of  the  company,  aristocrats  by  strength  of  their  sex, 
occupied  cells  in  Sainte-Pelagie,  where  we  have  al- 
ready listened  to  their  merriment.  They  escaped  trial 
through  the  destruction  of  their  dossiers  by  a  hu- 
mane member  of  the  Committee  of  Safety,  and  the 
9  Thermidor  set  them  free.  Talma  had  already  left 
the  troupe  in  April,  1791,  driven  away,  with  two  or 
three  friends,  by  dissensions  and  jealousies.  They 
went  over  to  the  new  house  which  had  been  con- 
structed, in  1789,  at  a  corner  of  the  Palais-Royal,  by 
enterprising  contractors  with  influential  politicians 
between  them.  It  was  called  at  first  Theatre  Francais 
de  la  Rue  de  Richelieu,  and,  in  1792,  Theatre  de  la 


266  THE   STONES   OF  PARIS 

Republique.  On  Talma's  desertion  of  the  old  house, 
there  began  a  legal  process  against  him,  exactly  like 
that  instituted  by  the  same  Comedie  Francaise  against 
M.  Coquelin,  a  century  later,  when  the  theatre  had 
for  its  lawyer  the  grandson  of  its  advocate  of  1792; 
and  the  decision  of  the  two  tribunals  was  the  same 
in  effect.  Talma  stayed  at  the  theatre  in  the  Palais- 
Royal,  to  which  he  drew  the  discerning  public,  and, 
after  ten  years  of  rivalry,  the  two  troupes  joined  hands 
on  those  boards,  and  so  the  Comedie  Franchise  came 
to  the  present  "  House  of  Moliere." 

It  would  seem  that  Talma  was  a  shrewd  man  of 
business,  and  drew  money  in  his  private  role  of  land- 
lord. He  owned  the  house  in  which  Mirabeau  died, 
in  Rue  de  la  Chaussee-d'Antin,  and  always  referred 
to  the  great  tribune  as  "  mon  ancien  locataire,  Mira- 
beau." Just  beyond,  in  Rue  Chantereine,  Talma  was 
attracted  by  the  small  villa  built  by  the  architect  Le- 
doux,  for  Condorcet,  it  is  said.  Perhaps  the  actor  had 
seen,  in  that  street,  an  even  more  plausible  actor, 
Giuseppe  Balsamo  by  name,  calling  himself  the  Count 
Cagliostro.  He  had  established  himself  in  one  of  the 
villas  in  this  street,  on  coming  to  Paris  to  ply  his  trade, 
toward  1784.  And  in  1778  the  wonder-working  Mes- 
mer  had  set  up  his  machinery  and  masqueraded  as  a 
magician  in  a  house  in  the  same  street.  Benjamin 
Franklin  went  there,  one  of  a  government  commission 
sent  to  investigate  the  miracles. 

In  his  new  residence  in  Rue  Chantereine,  Talma 
welcomed  his  friends  among  the  Revolutionary  lead- 


THE   PARIS   OF   THE  REVOLUTION  267 

ers,  and  gave  them  bouillon  in  the  kitchen,  when  he 
came  home  from  the  theatre  at  night.  In  1795  he 
sold  the  villa  to  Josephine  de  Beauharnais,  and  he 
always  said  that  her  first  payment  was  made  to  him 
from  moneys  sent  to  her,  by  her  husband,  from  Italy. 
It  is  not  known  whether  Talma  owned,  or  leased,  an 
apartment  in  No.  15  Quai  Voltaire,  where  he  lived 
from  1802  until  1806.  The  house,  now  No.  17,  one 
of  the  ancient  stately  structures  facing  the  quay,  is 
somewhat  narrower  than  its  neighbors.  During  the 
ten  years  between  1807  and  18 17  he  had  an  apartment 
at  No.  6  Rue  de  Seine;  possibly  in  that  pavilion  in 
the  court  which  was  built  by  Marguerite  de  Valois 
for  her  residence,  and  which  has  been  heightened  by 
having  two  new  floors  slipped  between  the  lower  and 
top  stories,  leaving  these  latter  and  the  facade  much 
as  she  built  them.  His  home,  from  1818  to  1821,  at 
No.  14  Rue  de  Rivoli,  is  replaced  by  the  new  structures 
at  the  western  end  of  that  street,  which  is  entirely  re- 
numbered. After  two  more  changes  on  the  northern 
bank,  he  finally  settled  at  No.  9  Rue  de  la  Tour-des- 
Dames.  Until  1822  there  was  still  to  be  seen  the 
tower  of  the  windmill  owned  by  the  "  Dailies  de  Mont- 
martre,"  which  gave  its  name  to  this  street.  At  its 
number  3,  a  small  hotel,  circular-fronted  and  most 
coquettish,  lived  Mile.  Mars,  it  is  believed,  and  here 
she  was  the  victim  of  the  earliest  recorded  theft  of 
an  actress's  jewels.  The  simple  and  stately  house,  of 
a  low  curtain  between  two  wings,  with  two  stories 
and  a  mansard  roof,  bearing  the  number  9,  is  the 


268  THE    STONES    OF   PARIS 

scene  of  Talma's  last  years  and  of  his  death,  on  Oc- 
tober 19,  1826.  His  final  appearance  had  been  on  June 
nth  of  that  year,  in  his  marvellous  personation  of 
Charles  VI.  At  this  house  we  shall  see  Dumas  visit 
the  old  actor,  who  had  seen  Voltaire !  Dumas  says 
that  Talma  spared  nothing  in  his  aim  at  accuracy,  his- 
toric and  archseologic,  when  creating  a  new  role  or 
mounting  a  new  play.  Indeed,  we  know  that  Talma 
was  the  first  great  realist  in  costume  and  scenery,  as 
we  know  that  he  first  brought  the  statues  of  tragedy 
down  to  human  proportions  and  gave  them  life-blood. 
Dumas  dwells  especially  on  the  voice  of  the  great 
tragedian — a  voice  that  was  glorious  and  sincere,  and 
in  anguish  was  a  sob. 

There  is  a  glowing  portrait  of  Talma  from  the  pen  of 
Chateaubriand,  in  which  he  makes  plain  that  the  tra- 
gedian, while  he  was,  himself,  his  century  and  ancient 
centuries  in  one,  had  been  profoundly  affected  by  the 
terrible  scenes  of  the  Terror  which  he  had  witnessed ; 
and  it  was  that  baleful  inspiration  that  sent  the  con- 
centrated passion  of  patriotism  leaping  in  torrents 
from  his  heart.  "  His  grace — not  an  ordinary  grace 
— seized  one  like  fate.  Black  ambition,  remorse,  jeal- 
ousy, sadness  of  soul,  bodily  agony,  human  grief,  the 
madness  sent  by  the  gods  and  by  adversity — that  was 
what  he  knew.  Just  his  coming  on  the  scene,  just 
the  sound  of  his  voice,  were  overpoweringly  tragic. 
Suffering  and  contemplation  mingled  on  his  brow, 
breathed  in  his  postures,  his  gestures,  his  walk,  his 
motionlessness." 


THE   PARIS   OF  THE  REVOLUTION  269 

Thomas  Carlyle  seems  strangely  placed  in  the  stalls 
of  the  Theatre  Francais,  yet  he  sat  there,  at  the  end 
of  his  twelve-days'  visit  to  Paris  in  1825.  "  On  the 
night  before  leaving,"  he  writes,  "  I  found  that  I  ought 
to  visit  one  theatre,  and  by  happy  accident  came  upon 
Talma  playing  there.  A  heavy,  shortish,  numb-footed 
man,  face  like  a  warming-pan  for  size,  and  with  a 
strange,  most  ponderous,  yet  delicate  expression  in  the 
big,  dull-glowing  black  eyes  and  it.  Incomparably 
the  best  actor  I  ever  saw.  Play  was  '  CEdipe  ' ;  place 
the  Theatre  Francais." 


Monogram  from  former  entrance  of  the  Cour  du  Commerce, 
believed  to  be  the  initials  of  the  owner,  one  Girardot. 


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